Gavin Newsom: National Guard deployment in LA cost $118 million
President Donald Trump’s deployment of California National Guard members and Marines to Los Angeles earlier this summer has cost taxpayers $118 million so far, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Last month, Newsom filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all documents pertaining to the deployment, which federal District Judge Charles Breyer ruled was illegal in a decision issued Tuesday. The White House has appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
In June, the Pentagon seized control of the California National Guard and also sent 700 Marines to suppress anti-immigration protests, inflaming an ongoing war of words between Trump and Newsom, who has taken to parroting the president’s caps-lock posting style and mocking him online.
The decision to deploy over 4,200 guardsmen and 700 Marines to Southern California cost $71 million in food and other basic goods, $37 million for wages and salaries, $4 million in logistical supplies, $3.5 million in travel and $1.5 million demobilization costs, according to Newsom’s office.
Some 300 Guard members remain in the area. Attorney General Rob Bonta has asked the courts for an injunction to prevent them from staying through Nov. 5, the day after voters will decide whether to redistrict state congressional boundaries in response to a similar GOP-led effort.
In addition to questioning its legality, Newsom zeroed in on how much the deployment has cost the Los Angeles region economically, calling it costly “political theater” as Trump threatened this week to do the same to cities like Chicago and Baltimore.
Washington, D.C., Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued the Trump administration on Thursday to stop a National Guard deployment in that city, calling it a “military occupation.” Breyer’s decision in California earlier this week ruled that the administration had violated an 1878 law preventing the Pentagon from using the military as domestic law enforcement.
“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.”
This story was originally published September 4, 2025 at 10:12 AM.
