Sacramento – Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that President Trump’s decision to deploy National Guard troops to Los Angeles is quite expensive political theater, making taxpayers promise with nearly $120 million in bills.
Newsom’s office said the newly revealed price tag is based on estimates provided by the California National Guard about the cost since June, when Trump sent more than 4,200 National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines to Los Angeles. Newsom’s office said that included $71 million in food and other basic necessities, $37 million in salary, $4 million in logistics supplies, $3.5 million in travel and $1.5 million in demobilization fees.
Most of the soldiers were sent home in August, although there were still 300 soldiers in Los Angeles.
A federal judge in San Francisco banned soldiers from assisting with immigration arrests on Tuesday, a harsh opinion, which amounted to a major victory for California and other states criticizing the Trump administration’s deployment. Newsom filed a preliminary injunction after the ruling, asking the court to block a new order from the Secretary of Defense that expanded the deployment of 300 National Guard members in Los Angeles until after the November election.
“Let’s not forget what this political theater has cost us all – the money of millions of taxpayers, and the shrinking preparations of the national Guard, the unnecessary hardship for families supporting these troops,” Newsom said in a statement. “Talk about waste, fraud and abuse. We ask other states to do math on their own.”
In Washington, D.C., Trump has deployed the National Guard to the country’s capital, and the mayor filed a lawsuit earlier this week. More than 2,200 National Guard units in Washington, D.C. have encountered military fatigue there and carried rifles around the national monuments, the lawsuit said. I saw soldiers picking up garbage, putting down the covering, and chatting aimlessly while patrolling.
Trump warned that he intends to expand the use of the military in other cities.
