CBO Tells Merkley: Trump’s Brazen National Guard Deployment to American Cities Has So Far Cost U.S. Taxpayers Upwards of $589 Million

CBO Tells Merkley: Trump's Brazen National Guard Deployment to American Cities Has So Far Cost U.S. Taxpayers Upwards of $589 Million

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) told U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, that President Donald Trump's brazen decision to deploy National Guard personnel to U.S. cities, including Portland, has cost taxpayers upwards of $589 million to date. If these deployments continue at current levels, they will cost an additional $93 million per month. Furthermore, for each additional Guard unit that is activated in the future, costs will increase by $18-21 million per 1,000 soldiers. Trump has previously ordered troops into major cities across the country, including Portland, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Memphis.

Following Trump's directive that national guard troops will stay in Washington D.C. for the remainder of 2026, CBO estimates this deployment alone will cost taxpayers upwards of $660 million. If the administration continues the Guard deployment to Memphis and the 200 Texas National Guard troops remain active for all of 2026, as expected, and keeps personnel deployed to New Orleans for two additional months, that figure balloons to $1.1 billion.

"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," said Merkley, Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee. "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."

This startling waste of taxpayer dollars was brought to light due to a letter that Merkley led requesting that CBO analyze the costs of activating, deploying, and compensating National Guard personnel, as well as the cost to sustain and maintain these deployments. U.S. Senators Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) cosigned the letter.

Recently, CBO told Merkley that the Trump Administration could spend upwards of $125 million in its attempt to rename the Department of Defense (DOD). Similar to Trump's attempt to rename the Kennedy Center after himself, without action by Congress to pass legislation to legally rename DOD, the President's executive order is an unofficial and symbolic designation.

In October, Merkley also joined his colleagues in demanding an inquiry from DOD's Inspector General into these domestic deployments of active-duty and National Guard troops and underscored the illegality of such actions, which undermine military readiness and politicize the nation's military.

The full response from CBO can be found HERE.

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