National Guard deployment in D.C. approaches one year

+ approaches one year August 8, 20265:32 PM ET Heard on All Things Considered By Kat Lonsdorf National Guard deployment in D.C.

+ approaches one year Listen &middot; 4:03 4:03 Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed "> <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/nx-s1-5924868/nx-s1-9880638" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript President Trump's deployment of the National Guard will hit the one year mark next week.

+ Sponsor Message Transcript ROB SCHMITZ, HOST: And continuing around the globe back here to Washington, D.C., where thousands of members of the National Guard have been patrolling the streets of the city for nearly a year. President Trump deployed troops to the city in August of last year after declaring a crime emergency.

+ That emergency declaration ended a month later, but the National Guard has stayed, and their presence in D.C. has become increasingly, some might call it normal. NPR's Kat Lonsdorf has been following all of us, and she's here with us in the studio to talk about it. Hey, Kat. KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: Hey, Rob. SCHMITZ: Kat, I think, for a lot of people who don't live in D.C., it's kind of easy to forget that this deployment is ongoing. I mean... LONSDORF: Yeah. SCHMITZ: Can you just briefly remind us of how all of this started? LONSDORF: Sure. I mean, like you said, Rob, it started last August with that emergency declaration. That was despite D.C. hitting a 30-year low in violent crime earlier last year before the declaration. President Trump deployed the D.C. National Guard to the city, which is something he can do here because of the unique nature of the city. The president controls the National Guard. SCHMITZ: OK. LONSDORF: And pretty immediately, several Republican governors began sending their guard members to participate. So what started out as 800 troops soon grew to 2,000. And now we're at nearly 5,000 armed and uniformed troops from more than 20 different states. SCHMITZ: Wow, 5,000. I mean... LONSDORF: Yeah. SCHMITZ: I have noticed this. I'm here in D.C. after being away for a while, and I'm seeing National Guard troops all over the place. And I got to say, you know, they're suited up in their uniforms, and they look pretty - well, first of all, they look a little bored. LONSDORF: Yeah. SCHMITZ: But they look uncomfortable in this muggy heat of the D.C. summer. LONSDORF: Yeah, I mean, I see them every day, multiple times a day, often on my street or patrolling the neighborhood park. I also see them on my walk into work, at the farmers market, in the metro stations. They're mostly doing what they call presence patrols - making their presence known in order to discourage crime. I want to note, though, the guard here can't make arrests, and they're not trained in civilian policing, but they can detain people. SCHMITZ: Got it. So I'm just curious - this was for a crime emergency. Has there been an effect on crime with this deployment? LONSDORF: Well, I mean, it's a hard thing to measure. Like I said, crime was already trending down in D.C. and has continued with that trend, but that doesn't mean the National Guard has been the reason for it. SCHMITZ: Right. LONSDORF: In fact, there have been two different studies recently that have found that the National Guard presence has had no effect on violent crime in the city and that it has had minimal effect on more opportunistic crimes like theft or car break-ins. But both those studies also found that you could have better - maybe much better - outcomes for much cheaper with simply more engaged local policing. SCHMITZ: So 5,000 troops in D.C. - what's the cost? LONSDORF: Yeah, an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that it costs about $600 per guard member per day. SCHMITZ: Wow. LONSDORF: If you multiply that out by the 4,700 or so that we have here right now, that's about $3 million per day. The other thing that this deployment - is that this deployment has been extended until Inauguration Day 2029. So the... SCHMITZ: Oh. LONSDORF: ...Long-term cost of this is going well into the billions. That also means the troops will likely be here for years. I talked to Joseph Nunn. He's counsel at the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program, and he's been following this deployment in D.C. closely. JOSEPH NUNN: I worry about these troops standing on street corners fitting into the background and people starting to accept this as just a fact of life, as something that's normal. LONSDORF: There is a lot of protest against it. You see signs all over the city - maybe you've seen them - saying, National Guard go home, troops out, but, you know, D.C. is not a state. It's harder to push back against the federal government here. SCHMITZ: Yeah, and Kat, you and I have both spent time in places where troops are regularly seen on the streets, but I think it's fair to say those places are not healthy democracies. LONSDORF: Yeah, exactly. You know, the Declaration of Independence even has a line in it condemning King George III for keeping standing armies among the population in times of peace. And it was really after that that the U.S. created the new norm of democracies divorcing the military and civilian policing. A lot of experts I've been talking with over the past year are concerned. That is really being challenged with this deployment. SCHMITZ: That is NPR's Kat Lonsdorf. Thanks, Kat. LONSDORF: Thank you. Copyright &copy; 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. 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