“The current estimated cost is $134 million, which is largely just [temporary duty travel] costs, travel, housing, food, etc.,” Bryn MacDonnell, the Defense Department’s acting comptroller and a special assistant to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, said Tuesday.
She told the House Appropriations defense subcommittee that the money will come from the Pentagon’s operation and maintenance accounts.
The response came more than an hour after Hegseth initially refused to answer the question about the cost of President Trump’s decision to call in some 4,000 California National Guard troops and 700 active-duty Marines to Los Angeles to quell protests of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.
After the panel’s ranking member, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), pressed Hegseth on the cost of the deployments and whether any trainings were being pushed off due to the troop movements, the Pentagon chief instead defended ICE agents as having “the right to safely conduct operations in any state and any jurisdiction in the country.”
He also attacked Democratic leaders for their handling of current and previous incidents of civil unrest, referencing the George Floyd murder protests in 2020 in Minneapolis and claiming Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) mobilized the National Guard “eventually far too late.”
“President Trump recognizes a situation like that, improperly handled by a governor, like it was by Gov. Walz, if it gets out of control, it’s a bad situation for the citizens,” Hegseth said.
Later in the hearing, Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), expressed “severe concern with the deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles without consultation of the state of California,” pointing to photographs circulating on social media that show troops sleeping on the floor of government buildings. He also repeated the claim from California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) that the service members have not been provided fuel, food or water by the Defense Department.
“How long will the deployment last, and why were we not prepared to provide them with basics such as food and water?” he asked.
Hegseth called the claim a “disingenuous attack” and said the troops “are very well prepared," adding that the deployment of the Guard troops was expected to last 60 days.
Read the full report at TheHill.com.
