SACRAMENTO — California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that President Trump’s decision to deploy National Guard troops to Los Angeles amounted to costly political theater, saddling taxpayers with a nearly $120-million bill.
Newsom’s office said the newly revealed price tag was tallied from estimates provided by the California National Guard about costs incurred since June, when Trump sent more than 4,200 National Guard members and 700 Marines to Los Angeles. That included $71 million for food and other basic necessities, $37 million in payroll, $4 million in logistic supplies, $3.5 million in travel and $1.5 million in demobilization costs, Newsom’s office said.
Most of the soldiers were sent home in August, although 300 remain in Los Angeles.
On Tuesday, a federal judge in San Francisco barred troops from aiding in immigration arrests in a scathing opinion that amounted to a major win for California and other states critical of the Trump administration’s deployments. Newsom filed a preliminary injunction after the ruling asking that the court block an order from the U.S. Secretary of Defense that extended the deployment of 300 National Guard members in Los Angeles until after the election in November.
“Let us not forget what this political theater is costing us all — millions of taxpayer dollars down the drain and an atrophy to the readiness of guardsmembers across the nation and unnecessary hardships to the families supporting those troops,” Newsom said in a statement. “Talk about waste, fraud, and abuse. We ask other states to do the math themselves.”
Newsom filed a public records request to U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in August asking for total expenses connected to the deployment of troops in Los Angeles. In that request, which is still pending, Newsom said most troops were “passing the days sitting idly without a clear mission, direction, or a timeline for returning to their communities.”
The totals released on Thursday were produced from a separate request to the California National Guard.
After troops arrived in Los Angeles, a massive tent city was erected at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, while others remained at the Westwood federal building, which was outfitted with sleeping and eating areas. Calls poured into the GI Rights Hotline counseling service from distressed service members and their families, as some agonized over being sent to help with federal immigration raids that could result in loved ones being deported. Others told The Times that “there’s not much to do.”
In Washington, D.C., where Trump has deployed the National Guard to the nation’s capital, district leaders filed a lawsuit on Thursday. That lawsuit said more than 2,200 National Guard troops have been deployed since Aug. 11 to Washington D.C., where they are seen dressed in military fatigues and carrying rifles.
Trump said in an executive order authorizing the deployment that the capital was “under siege” and that rising violence was endangering residents and tourists and disrupting the federal government from properly functioning.
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, has called Trump’s takeover an “authoritarian push,” and pointed to a steep decline in violent crimes. Soldiers deployed there are seen picking up trash, laying down mulch and chatting aimlessly as they patrol next to national monuments.
Trump has warned that he intends to expand his use of military forces in other cities, including in Chicago and Baltimore, despite staunch opposition in those Democrat-led cities.
