The Brief

Tears welling in her eyes, Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan paused mid-sentence to calm herself on the Assembly floor.

Almost a century ago, the Nazis forced her grandmother to flee Austria, leaving behind her great-great-grandmother who died in the Holocaust, the Jewish Democrat from San Ramon told her fellow lawmakers. Last year, she said, her daughter told her that the bathrooms at her school had been vandalized with swastikas.

“My children deserve to show up at school and not have to face hate crimes in their building, to face the symbols that represented the end of their relatives,” she said.

Stories like hers, as well as Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, prompted California’s Jewish lawmakers to make countering antisemitism in schools their top priority this year. They sought to create a list of words and ideas that could not be mentioned in classrooms, including heavily disputed claims about Israel. The effort sparked the biggest, most emotional legislative fight of the year: Should the government regulate what can be taught in schools? If so, how far should it go?

At issue was Assembly Bill 715, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law this month after it went through multiple major, sometimes last-minute rewrites during months of political tussling.

Champions have argued the law will protect Jewish students from rising bullying and discrimination, sometimes from teachers. While the state does not collect data on antisemitism in schools, reports of anti-Jewish bias statewide have doubled between 2021 and 2024, according to the California Department of Justice. Last year, more than 15% of all hate crime events in California were anti-Jewish, even though Jewish people make up about 3% of the state population.

“We cannot hide from the profoundly unfortunate truth that Jewish kids are being isolated, made to feel unwelcome, and verbally and physically attacked. And far too often, our schools are failing to protect them,” Assemblymember Rick Zbur, a Los Angeles Democrat and co-author of the bill, said during a May hearing, when the bill started as merely a promise to curb antisemitism in schools.

Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur speaks to lawmakers during an Assembly floor session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Oct. 1, 2024.

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By July, it had undergone a major overhaul, including determining that any instruction that “directly or indirectly deny Israel’s right to exist,” equating Israelis with Nazis, or disrespecting “the historical, cultural, or religious significance of Israel to the Jewish people” would count as creating an “antisemitic learning environment.” It reinvigorated debates over whether criticism of Israel’s founding, or even the belief that Jewish people should have an independent country in their ancient homeland, counts as antisemitic — something Jewish thinkers do not agree on.

Mainstream Jewish groups maintain that anti-Zionism, a broad term that generally opposes the idea of a standalone state with a Jewish-majority population, is antisemitic. Many Jewish academics, however, don’t think it is antisemitic on its own, but they agree that blaming individual Jews for the actions taken by the Israeli government is antisemitic.

That July version of the bill drew heavy opposition from a vast coalition of education groups, from teachers unions to school boards, civil rights advocates and Muslim community organizations, who feared censorship of pro-Palestinian voices and infringement upon academic freedom. They would remain opposed through its many iterations, and many of them urged Newsom to veto it.

Their concerns lingered even as the bill was ultimately watered down in the final days of this year’s legislative session to address bias more broadly: The final version no longer mentions the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and bars using professional development materials that violate the state’s anti-discrimination laws. It also requires “factually accurate” instruction that is free of “advocacy, personal opinion, bias, or partisanship” — a controversial element the bill’s authors said they ran out of time to tackle and promised to “clean up” next year.

“In its current form, this bill only reinforces broader national trends of silencing constitutionally protected speech, erasing historically relevant curriculum, and persecuting anyone who expresses even the slightest opposition to the federal administration,” said Assemblymember Robert Garcia, a freshman Democratic lawmaker from Rancho Cucamonga and former teacher and school board member, who ultimately abstained from voting on the measure.

The squabble over the bill was messy, marked by hundreds of attendees, hourslong hearings, and accusations of bad faith from both sides. Bauer-Kahan called a teachers union advocate who opposed the bill antisemitic. After the bill passed out of the Legislature, a handful of pro-Palestinian activists protested from the Assembly gallery for more than an hour, yelling: “You will all have blood on your hands!”

Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan speaks in support of SCR 135, which would designate May 6, 2024 as California Holocaust Memorial Day on the Assembly floor at the state Capitol in Sacramento on April 29, 2024.

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Miguel Gutierrez Jr.

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The tension highlights the discomfort for California Democrats, who, despite having traditionally defended Israel, have had to reckon with a base growing increasingly critical of Israel. They faced a tough choice: Support the bill and risk upsetting some of the most powerful labor allies as well as their pro-Palestinian constituents, or oppose the bill and risk being labeled as antisemitic or unwilling to combat antisemitism. Amid the pressure, some Democratic lawmakers voted for the bill even as they warned it could be used to censor free speech. Others abstained instead of taking a side.

“I'm actually surprised that California state legislators would want to even touch it, because it's just so radioactive right now,” said Kim Nalder, a political science professor at Sacramento State University. “It just feels like at this political moment, we want to lower the temperature, not shine a spotlight on ways in which we might target each other.”

The issue was such a hot potato that many lawmakers avoided tackling it early in the legislative process, when policy differences are often ironed out, said Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, a freshman progressive Democrat from Pasadena who chairs the Senate Education Committee. When the bill arrived in her committee in June, it still had no substantive language. Some lawmakers told her to not touch it either, while others left it up to her to “take care of it,” she said.

“The ball got thrown to me,” she told CalMatters. "And people knew that they were doing that."

'People would end up being very angry on both sides'

California’s Jewish lawmakers introduced the bill in response to intensifying clashes in schools and college campuses nationwide over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza. For some Democrats, the timing couldn’t have been worse.

The Gaza war has forced a tidal shift within the Democratic base, as voters’ support for Israel’s military campaign tanked over the past two years. That has forced some Democrats, even moderates who have historically backed Israel, to condemn the country and pull away from pro-Israel donors. Young Democrats are also more critical of Israel than their older peers, so any vote that could be perceived as silencing pro-Palestinian voices is risky.

“A very strong part of Democratic and leftist values that we are seeing expressed now is anti-genocide or anti-war,” Nalder said. “(For) my students who are politically active, this is one of the chief issues that they care about.”

The bill also came as President Donald Trump ordered immigration agents to arrest student activists critical of the Israeli government and withheld billions of dollars in funding from universities for their alleged failure to protect Jewish students. At least half a dozen other state Legislatures sought to fight antisemitism in schools this year, with some adopting a highly disputed definition of antisemitism in state education codes. Enraged, some opponents accused California Democrats of taking a page out of Trump’s playbook.

But the Democratic lawmakers had to balance all that with the risk of upsetting the Jewish community, a key voting block. A no vote could be construed as antisemitic, making the lawmaker vulnerable to challenges in the next election, Nalder said.

The bill was the sole priority of the 18-member California Legislative Jewish Caucus, which is composed entirely of Democrats and led by Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel of Encino and Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, who chair the budget committees in their respective chambers.

Neither would speak with CalMatters about what happened with the bill. Gabriel’s office did not respond to several CalMatters emails seeking an interview, whereas Wiener declined to comment, pointing CalMatters to the bill authors instead.

David Bocarsly, executive director of the Jewish Public Affairs Committee, which sponsored the bill, said the caucus’ backing was crucial.

“The Jewish caucus was able to leverage their influence and respect with their colleagues and effectively represent the Jewish community’s needs,” he said.

Pérez acknowledged the political challenge, telling CalMatters she would have preferred to hold the bill until next year, but said legislative leaders had promised to deliver a bill the governor could sign this year. She said some colleagues told her it was “an impossible situation” to navigate.

“They felt like there was no winning,” she said. “Regardless of what they would try to do to make amendments to it … people would end up being very angry on both sides.”

A debate over academic freedom

The clash over AB 715 is the latest episode of yearslong strife over how to teach about marginalized communities in California’s K-12 schools and who should be included.

In past years, the fight primarily focused on ethnic studies — a mandatory high school course on the history and culture of groups such as Latinos, Asian Americans, African Americans and Native Americans. The state adopted a model curriculum in 2021, after years of fine-tuning amid disputes over which ethnic minority groups to teach about and criticism from Jewish advocates, who accused past versions of being antisemitic.

Jewish lawmakers championed a bill earlier this year that aimed to tackle antisemitism by restricting the ethnic studies curriculum, but the effort was stopped early in its tracks, and legislators turned to AB 715 instead.

“This is a bill about protecting Jewish students, and it shouldn't have been controversial,” said Bocarsly, of JPAC. “If we don't teach empathy and understand it, we're going to build a generation of intolerance, and that's what we're trying to correct for.”

He said AB 715 was “the hardest political fight in JPAC’s history” and that the initial definition of an antisemitic learning environment was only meant to offer teachers guidance.

But opponents had two major concerns: that the bill’s initial definition of antisemitic learning environment risked silencing discord about Israel, and that even in its final watered-down version it could chill free speech and open teachers up to lawsuits for teaching about anything controversial.

“Jews are most safe when democracy flourishes, when pluralism flourishes, not when rights are taken away,” said David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association and a Jewish father to three children who attend public schools.

A classroom at a high school in Imperial County on Dec. 12, 2023.

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What’s safe for Jews was itself a matter of disagreement among the bill’s backers and dissenters. Bocarsly said CTA leadership’s opposition to every version of the bill shows that they “have little interest in supporting a bill that would protect Jewish students.”

Goldberg, in an interview, called that accusation “a lot of chutzpah, frankly.”

The fact the bill even tried to prescribe what an antisemitic environment looked like in classrooms was concerning to Kenneth Stern, a scholar on hate. More than 20 years ago, he was the lead author of the highly controversial definition of antisemitism that’s been adopted by some states this year. It all but labels anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism. Now, nearly 50 countries, including the U.S., have embraced the definition.

Though Stern wrote the definition, he opposes using it to restrict speech in schools, arguing that it could threaten academic freedom and fuel censorship by chilling discussion about controversial topics. Stern said despite all the revisions made during the process, the final version will likely make antisemitism worse.

The law creates an antisemitism prevention coordinator to advise education and legislative leaders and says the person in that role should use federal guidelines published under former President Joe Biden as “a basis” for decision-making. The controversial definition of antisemitism Stern wrote is labeled as the most prominent definition of antisemitism in those guidelines, though it mentions others.

“I understand why people care about (preventing antisemitism in schools),” he said. “They want the Legislature to do something. I think the legislators are sincere that they want to do something. This is the wrong thing.”

Educators like Goldberg worry the bill could allow bad-faith critics to also dispute a wide array of controversial topics taught in schools. Will it become the basis for critics of the transgender community to pressure teachers to say there are only two genders, he wondered.

Gabriel Kahn, a Jewish teacher in Oakland who said he’s being investigated by his school district after challenging the content of an antisemitic training last year, said he fears prosecution for voicing the need to distinguish between antisemitism and criticism of Israel.

“What I’m most afraid of is that in the Democratic state of California, we can pass a censorship bill that protects a foreign nation from criticism implicitly,” he said. “What does that say about the future of academic freedom in our country?”

CalMatters reporter Carolyn Jones contributed reporting.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Curren Price Jr. was ordered to stand trial on corruption charges Wednesday.

Superior Court Judge Shelly Torrealba made the decision after a six-day preliminary hearing where prosecutors presented a wide range of evidence against the 75-year-old Price, including documents showing he voted to support projects that benefitted his wife’s business.

Price faces 12 felony counts: five counts of grand theft by embezzlement of public funds, four counts of conflict of interest and three counts of perjury by declaration.

If convicted on all charges, he faces up to 11 years behind bars.

“I’m glad that we were able to put on the evidence and the judge heard it and we get to move forward,” said Deputy District Attorney Casey Higgins, who presented the case.

Price has pleaded not guilty.

“We’re obviously disappointed,” said Price defense attorney Michael Schafler. “We are going to continue to fight.”

Price declined to comment after the hearing.

Conflict of interest charges

Price, who represents a large swath of South L.A., is termed out of office at the end of the year. He is a veteran L.A. politician who has served in the state senate and assembly and on the Inglewood City Council.

The conflict of interest charges relate to Price’s failure to recuse himself on votes involving projects in which his wife benefitted, according to prosecutors. Delbra Price Richardson provides relocation services and community engagement on big projects.

During the hearing, prosecutors presented evidence that the city’s Housing Authority and LA Metro paid Price’s wife more than $800,000 at the same time Price voted to award the agency's multimillion-dollar contracts.

Prosecutors also presented evidence that Del Richardson & Associates, a company owned solely by Price’s wife, received payments totaling more than $150,000 between 2019 and 2021 from developers before he voted to approve their projects.

Former Price staffers testified about their system for flagging projects where there was a conflict of interest. But they conceded some projects slipped through the cracks.

Schafler said Price didn’t know about the conflicts at the time.

“There is no evidence Mr. Price knew of conflicts or that he acted with any wrongful intent,” the defense attorney said. “Prosecutors presented no evidence of Price's state of mind.”

He also noted the projects “overwhelmingly” passed the City Council and that Price’s vote made no difference.

Higgins, the deputy district attorney, argued it was ultimately Price’s responsibility to recuse himself from voting on projects involving his wife. The prosecutor told the judge Price tried to “create a wall around himself” with staffers who would give him “plausible deniability.”

The perjury charges relate to Price allegedly failing to include Richardson’s income on disclosure forms. Schafler said the statute of limitations had run out on the charge.

Price is also accused of embezzling approximately $33,800 in city funds from 2013-2017 to pay for medical benefits for Richardson, whom he falsely claimed was his wife while still legally married to Lynn Suzette Price.

“He's nickel and diming the government at every turn,” Higgins told the court.

“Your honor, this is not the kind of case with strippers and hookers and bags of cash and cocaine,” he said. “It's a long secret corruption.”

Statement from Price’s office

After the judge’s decision, Price’s spokesperson Angelina Valencia-Dumarot issued a statement.

“The testimony presented during the hearing, including from key witnesses, clearly shows that Councilman Price did not act with any intent to do wrong and that the case rests on speculation rather than facts. While the court’s ruling is disappointing, the Councilmember remains fully committed to fighting these charges, clearing his name, and is confident the truth will ultimately prevail.”

No trial date has been set. The next court date is March 13.

As a series of winter storms barreled toward Southern California around the start of the new year, the 211 LA hotline prepared to hand out motel vouchers and reserve shelter beds for people seeking refuge from wet weather.

The hotline received more than 12,700 calls for assistance between Dec. 22 and Jan. 6, when the Emergency Response Program was activated in response to the severe weather.

But it had only 140 motel vouchers to distribute — 50 from the city of Los Angeles and 90 from the county. All vouchers were handed out within a day, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA, which helps distribute funding.

Only one shelter in the program, in Long Beach, was open at that time and it was full during the two-week activation period, according to LAHSA. Another winter shelter program offers 335 beds but was mostly full at the time, officials said.

The situation highlights long-running challenges 211 LA has faced during weather emergencies, including inadequate staff and long wait times. Officials say hotline callers are often frustrated when they find out that so few resources are available.

“A lot of the responses that we get from callers is anger … about not being able to provide them with that resource that they were told they can call us for,” Nancy Dueñez Velazquez, 211 LA’s housing director, told LAist.

She noted that when city and county officials encourage people to call 211 LA for shelter during a storm, they often don’t make clear that resources are "extremely limited.”

County supervisors say they’re working to address 211’s challenges, but there are budget constraints. The county is considering major cuts to homeless services and programs in the next budget year as it faces increased costs and funding losses.

Other county officials say they’re working to improve messaging around 211 and are shifting more funding through LAHSA to boost staffing.

Supervisor Janice Hahn told LAist she wants the county to look into providing more shelter beds during storms.

“In an emergency when lives are on the line, we have to be able to do better,” Hahn said.

LAist reached out to several authorities in the city of L.A., including Mayor Karen Bass, but none responded by the time of publication.

Thousands of calls; limited resources

Southern California experienced historic rainfall in late December — Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were the wettest on record — followed by more rain in early January.

During that time, the 211 hotline received 12,784 calls for assistance, Dueñez Velazquez said. But it didn’t have enough staff to handle them all.

The hotline had funding for 17 agents, working around the clock, who were able to field about three quarters of those calls. The rest disconnected before reaching an agent. Ideally, the hotline needs nearly 60 agents to handle the call load, according to 211 LA estimates.

Officials said they can boost staffing during emergencies by paying staff overtime. During the recent storms, 211 LA added about 58 hours of overtime, officials said.

Fewer staff can mean people wait longer to get connected to an agent for assistance. The average wait time for people calling during the storms was a little under eight minutes.

The longest wait time happened on Dec. 23, a day before Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in L.A. and five other counties because of the weather. Some 211 callers waited two hours to reach an agent.

Long wait times are not new to 211. In February 2024, as an atmospheric river was pummeling the region, LAist called the hotline and waited three hours and 30 minutes before reaching an agent. That was a little longer than the average wait for most callers that day, officials said at the time.

Officials from 211 LA have communicated those challenges in multiple after-action reports, most recently in June 2025. The reports highlight strained capacity, extensive wait times, frustrated callers and delayed funding.

Dueñez Velazquez said 211 LA has the ability to respond quickly to emergency events and assist people in need, it just needs the resources and budget to support the work. On a typical day, the hotline is “able to handle the call volume,” she said, but callers’ needs fluctuate with the weather.

Resources can run out quickly, so 211 LA provides whatever assistance is available at the time of the call, Dueñez Velazquez said.

“Whether that's a motel voucher, whether that's placement in a winter shelter site or whether that's information and referral to the next possible best resource that we can connect you to,” she said. “We really are here to help.”

She added that 211 LA updates its website with information about the number of available motel vouchers so callers with access to the site can decide whether to stay on the line.

LAHSA officials said the agency's goal is to serve as many unhoused people as possible each winter, and they’re proud to have “maximized resources” during the latest emergency.

“We would welcome additional resources, but we understand there are several competing priorities,” Ahmad Chapman, LAHSA’s director of communications, told LAist.

County officials respond

L.A. County officials say they’re working to fix some of the problems facing 211.

Supervisor Hilda Solis, chair of the Board of Supervisors, told LAist her office is improving public messaging so people calling 211 get the most up-to-date information on how many vouchers and other emergency resources are available.

“Extreme weather events highlight both the importance and the limits of motel vouchers,” Solis said. “While they are an essential emergency tool during storms, they are resource-intensive and difficult to scale quickly enough to meet the full level of need.”

Measure A, a half-cent sales tax increase passed by voters in 2024, directs funding to 211 LA to help ramp up capacity during the winter shelter season, Solis said. Cities can use their Measure A dollars to help add emergency shelters beds and motel vouchers to the overall inventory.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger told LAist the county’s new Department of Homeless Services and Housing is focused on making the most of limited resources while working with LAHSA on outreach.

“While emergency shelters are one critical tool, they are not the only option — motel vouchers and other interventions are also part of the County’s response — but all of this is constrained by fiscal realities,” Barger said. “That’s why we continue to look for ways to better coordinate, communicate, and stretch resources as effectively as possible.”

Officials with the Department of Homeless Services and Housing told LAist that more emergency shelter units were available during the winter storms, nearly half of which were allocated to 211 LA.

The department said in a statement to LAist it connects with people experiencing homelessness to make sure they’re aware of incoming storms, moves them out of areas prone to flooding and provides temporary shelter for as many as possible. Outreach teams also have their own motel vouchers to hand out, according to officials, in addition to 211 LA.

“[The department] has taken steps to support 211 in addressing an influx of callers seeking support during inclement weather, including shifting funding through LAHSA to pay for around-the-clock staffing to meet urgent needs,” the statement read.

Officials with the city of L.A. have expressed concerns about the region's storm response in the past.

Councilmember Nithya Raman has said previously that her office struggled to get people seeking shelter into temporary rooms during winter storms in 2024, and that there needed to be better lines of communication between LAHSA, 211 and the city.

Raman, chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee, and Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, vice-chair of the committee, didn’t respond to LAist’s questions about the recent storm response.

Mayor Karen Bass’ office did not respond to LAist’s request for comment.

On Wednesday, Bruce Springsteen released a protest song condemning the violence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis. The song memorializes the lives of Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti, who were fatally shot by federal agents this month.

"I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis," The Boss wrote on social media. "It's dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free."

"Streets of Minneapolis" is a full-band rock and roll song, complete with an E Street Choir singalong. Springsteen's raw and raspy voice is full of indignation as he calls out "King Trump" and his "federal thugs," and promises to remember the events unfolding in the streets of Minneapolis this winter. The verses narrate the killings of Good and Pretti respectively, and underline how eyewitness videos of their deaths contradict government officials' statements.

"Their claim was self defense, sir / Just don't believe your eyes," Springsteen sings. "It's our blood and bones / And these whistles and phones / Against [Stephen] Miller and [Kristi] Noem's dirty lies."

Following the shooting of 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti on Saturday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem referred to Pretti's actions as "domestic terrorism," saying he "brandished" a gun and "attacked" officers. Noem used similar language to describe Renee Macklin Good's behavior shortly before she was shot by an officer. A preliminary government review of Pretti's case diverts from Noem's initial statements, instead claiming that Pretti resisted arrest before being shot by two Customs and Border Protection officers.

The release of "Streets of Minneapolis" follows public comments made by Springsteen regarding the ongoing protests. During an appearance at the Light of Day festival in New Jersey earlier this month, he dedicated his performance of "The Promised Land" to Renee Macklin Good, and echoed sentiments expressed by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey that "ICE should get the f*** out of Minneapolis."

Springsteen, who has written politically-driven music for decades, has heavily criticized President Trump's policies since he was first elected to office in 2016. Last spring, he released the live EP Land of Hope & Dreams, which included on-stage comments from a show in England calling out the "corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration."

Copyright 2026 NPR

President Donald Trump's unprecedented use of the National Guard could cost $1.1 billion this year if domestic deployments remain in place, according to data released by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

During his second term, Trump sent troops to six Democratic-led cities in an effort to suppress protests, tackle crime or protect federal buildings and personnel. Half of those mobilizations ended this month, namely in Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Ore. But the continued military presence in Washington, D.C., Memphis and New Orleans, along with 200 members of the Texas National Guard still on standby, is expected to carry a steep cost.

On Wednesday, the CBO said that at current levels, these deployments will require an additional $93 million per month. The operation in D.C. alone, which currently includes over 2,690 Guard members, is projected to reach upwards of $660 million this year if it runs through December as expected by the CBO.

The CBO's findings were issued in response to 11 U.S. senators — led by Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon — who, back in October, urged the budget office to conduct an independent probe into deployment costs.

"It's a massive use of national treasure that should be going into healthcare, housing and education," Merkley told NPR on Wednesday.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

For months, the Trump administration has offered little information about the price tag associated with the Guard operations. The CBO's findings on Wednesday come as Trump's use of National Guard troops has already faced legal scrutiny in the courts and sparked serious conversations about soldiers' morale.

In 2025, $496 million spent on domestic deployments 

Trump first deployed the Guard in June to Los Angeles in response to protests over immigration raids. In the months that followed, the president ordered troops to D.C. and Memphis, arguing that they were needed to crack down on crime. Guard forces were also mobilized to Chicago and Portland, Ore., after the administration said they were needed to protect federal buildings and personnel, though they were blocked by federal courts from conducting operations. Most recently, at the end of December, troops arrived in New Orleans after Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry requested federal assistance to improve public safety.

According to the CBO, these mobilizations cost about $496 million in 2025. That total includes:

• $193 million in Los Angeles 
• $223 million in D.C.
• $33 million in Memphis
• $26 million in Portland, Ore.
• $21 million in Chicago

The cost for a single service member — which includes pay, health care, lodging, food and transportation — ranges from $311 to $607 per day, the budget office said.

At large, the nation's defense budget will surpass $1 trillion for the first time in U.S. history as a result of Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act. But Gabe Murphy, a policy analyst from the nonpartisan budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, said the deployments' multimillion-dollar price tag shouldn't be overlooked.

" No one wants to see their tax dollars wasted," he said.

Murphy argued that using federalized Guard members to tackle crime, like in D.C. and Memphis, is not cost-effective since they are not allowed to conduct actual law enforcement duties, such as performing arrests or searches. He added that deploying the Guard is not a long-term solution to reducing crime.

"It would be far more cost effective to invest in local law enforcement," he said.

Trump has repeatedly defended the use of troops, asserting that cities with a Guard presence have become safer.

"Can't imagine why governors wouldn't want us to help," Trump said at a press conference on Jan. 3.

If Trump orders more deployments, it could cost up to $21 million per 1,000 soldiers

Earlier this month, the Trump administration withdrew the Guard from California, Oregon and Illinois after the Supreme Court refused to allow troops into Chicago, at least for the time being.

Despite the setback, Trump has continued to suggest using military force domestically. Most recently, he threatened to activate troops via the Insurrection Act to quell protests in Minneapolis following the shooting of Renee Macklin Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

To support additional Guard deployments, the CBO estimates that it could cost between $18 million and $21 million for every additional 1,000 soldiers.

Lindsay Koshgarian, the program director of the National Priorities Project who has been tracking deployment costs, worries that at some point, these expenses will affect funding for other important military priorities. The NPP is a research group within the progressive think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies.

A cautionary tale comes from 2021. After some 25,000 Guard forces were sent to D.C. in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the Army National Guard warned that the money used for that deployment had diverted funds away from military training and readiness. Congress later approved $521 million to reimburse the Guard.

"At some point, this is going to either take away from other things that people want and need or it's probably going to have to be funded with additional money," she said.
Copyright 2026 NPR