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By Alice Gibbs
Senior Reporter
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The Biden-era Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released a new estimate showing that the Trump administration’s ongoing deployments of National Guard personnel to U.S. cities are costing taxpayers $93 million every month.
The figure reflects the cost of maintaining thousands of mobilized Guard members in locations including Washington, D.C., Memphis and Texas, where personnel remain on standby.
The analysis, sent to Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley on January 28, lays out the first comprehensive cost assessment of the president’s domestic troop deployments since they began in June 2025.
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Newsweek reached out to the White House via email for comment.
Why It Matters
The CBO’s findings underscore the scale and financial weight of the president’s domestic security strategy.
The federal government has kept nearly 3,000 Guard personnel in Washington, D.C., and 1,500 in Memphis, with other troops still mobilized in Texas.
The report notes that even deployments that were halted by courts, such as in Portland and Chicago, continued to generate nearly full costs because Guard members remained activated and stationed nearby.
The administration has also indicated that some deployments, including the mission in Washington, will continue through the end of 2026.
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What To Know
The CBO calculates that maintaining the deployments at their December 2025 levels amounts to $93 million per month.
That figure is driven by several large ongoing missions. Washington, D.C., accounts for the single biggest share at $55 million each month for roughly 2,950 personnel; Memphis accounts for $28 million per month with a force of 1,500; and a further $4 million per month is tied to 200 Texas Guard members who remain mobilized after participating in the Chicago deployment.
New Orleans, which saw 350 Guard personnel activated at the end of December, represents about $6 million per month.
The deployments stretched across six cities: Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Memphis, Portland, Chicago and New Orleans. Most of the deployments in Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland were demobilized on January 21, 2026, but the forces in Washington, D.C., and Memphis remain in place.
The soaring monthly costs are attributed the high daily expenses associated with each service member. The CBO estimates that military pay and benefits for activated Guard personnel average $260 per day, with health care adding another $25 per day.
Lodging costs range from $129 per day in Memphis to $196 per day in Washington, D.C., and meals and incidental expenses add $74 to $92 per day, depending on location, while transportation averages $34 per day. These figures contribute to daily totals of $522 to $607 per person depending on the city.
The agency also lays out projections for hypothetical future deployments. Sending 1,000 Guard members to a low-cost city similar to Memphis would cost roughly $18 million per month, while deploying the same force to a high-cost city like Washington would total about $21 million per month.
What People Are Saying
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement: "Thanks to the Trump Administration’s highly successful efforts to drive down violent crime, cities like Memphis and D.C. are much safer for residents and visitors—with crime dropping across all major categories."
Senator Jeff Merkley said in a statement on Wednesday: "The American people deserve to know how many hundreds of millions of their hard-earned dollars have been and are being wasted on Trump’s reckless and haphazard deployment of National Guard troops to Portland and cities across the country. That’s why we’ve called for this full, independent analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to get a detailed understanding of the cost. Trump is weaponizing taxpayer funds to illegally tighten his authoritarian grip on our communities. It must end."
What Happens Next
The CBO says that future costs are difficult to predict because so much depends on how long these deployments last, how many personnel are involved, and whether the administration expands or reduces its use of the Guard. Some missions, such as in Los Angeles, ended after a few months, while others—particularly in Washington, D.C., and Memphis—have no clear endpoint.
Legal challenges add further uncertainty. In some cities, courts have blocked Guard personnel from carrying out their intended missions, but costs have continued because troops remained mobilized and away from their home stations.
The president has also considered a more permanent model for domestic security responses. A memorandum issued in August 2025 calls for ensuring the availability of a standing National Guard quick‑reaction force capable of rapid nationwide deployment, a move that could expand both the scope and cost of future operations.
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