Trump's Trials - National Guard deployment in D.C. extended until 2029

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

The National Guard will remain deployed in Washington, D.C., through Inauguration Day 2029 as part of President Trump's anti-crime mission in the city, unless the president deems otherwise, the Pentagon confirmed to NPR. NPR's Kat Lonsdorf reports.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Trump's terms. I'm Scott Detrow. Every episode, we bring you one story from NPR's recent coverage of the 47th president. With a focus on ways his administration is pushing the boundaries of presidential power. Here's the latest from NPR. May Martinez, President Trump's National Guard deployment to Washington, D.C. has been extended until inauguration day, 2029. The Pentagon confirmed the news to NPR. thousands of armed uniform troops have been patrolling the city for nearly a year already.

NPR's Kat Lonsdorf has been following Trump's various National Guard deployments. Katzl just remind us about this deployment and what's it like in D.C. these days. Yeah, President Trump deployed the National Guard here back in August of last year after declaring a crime emergency in the city despite a 30-year low in violent crime. He ended that emergency declaration a month later, but the troops and the federal law enforcement task force that they're a part of continued. Since then, the number of guard members in the city has slowly increased over time. In recent weeks, it's hit nearly 5,000, not just from D.C., but from about 20 states. All of the Guard have been deputized by the U.S. Marshals as special police and they carry a firearm, which is pretty rare for a domestic deployment.

And I live in D.C. I see the troops every single day, multiple times a day, doing what are called presence patrols, basically just walking around residential and business areas making their presence known. they've become a regular and controversial part of the scenery of the city. All right. So has the White House said anything about why this deployment was extended for several more years? No. I reached out to the White House to ask why an extension for another two and a half years was deemed necessary, but haven't gotten a response. President Trump has repeatedly hailed the D.C. mission as a success, falsely claiming that the city has, quote, almost no crime anymore. Crime has gone down in D.C. but it was trending that way before Trump came back into office. Two different studies, one by the Progressive Center for American Progress and the other by the nonpartisan Ms. Cannon Center, have found that this deployment has had no effect on violent crime in the city, and that crime would have dropped regardless.

Now, the National Guard isn't in D.C. for free, any sense of what this costs? Yeah, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office came out with a recent estimate that said it costs around $600 per day per guard member here. So if you multiply that by the 5,000 or so troops we have in. Now, that's around $3 million per day of taxpayer money. I've been talking with Virginia Berger. She's a senior defense policy analyst at the project on government oversight. That's an independent nonpartisan watchdog. Using that estimate, she calculated that if we stay with that current level of troops here

until January 20th, 20, 29, the total cost will be a little over $3.4 billion. And this is conservative, right? This does not account for inflation. This does not account for increased costs for lodging, food, transportation. It's possible federal officials could reduce the number of troops and then the cost would be lower, but they could also add more, and then the cost would be more. Now, what do you hear from D.C. residents about this deployment. Yeah, I talk about the National Guard to people in D.C. all the time these days,

and I have yet to speak to someone who thinks it's a good idea that they're here. It's important to remember that this deployment was not requested by local. officials from the city council members to the mayor. And more broadly, there's a real concern that this is normalizing the presence of uniformed, armed military on the streets of the nation's capital during a non-emergency for years now. Many constitutional experts and former military officials I've talked with have pointed out that's a worrying sign as to the health of America's democracy. That's NPR's Kat. Kat Lonsdorf. Kat things long. Thank you. A note before we go, if you value this show and want to help keep it going, a free and

totally easy way to support us is to rate and review Trump's terms on the platform where you listen in a world of algorithms that goes a long way toward helping us reach new listeners. If you have left a review in the past, thank you so much. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's Terms from NPR.