You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Pentagon: Troop Deployment to L.A. Will Cost $134 Million

HeadlineJun 11, 2025

In more news from California, on Tuesday, a U.S. district judge declined California Governor Newsom’s emergency request to block Trump from sending in troops. The Pentagon is estimating it will cost $134 million to keep the National Guard and Marines in L.A. for the next 60 days. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was questioned Tuesday during a congressional hearing by Democratic Congressmember Betty McCollum.

Rep. Betty McCollum: “What training missions aren’t happening? Where are you pulling the money from? And how are you planning this in the — moving forward?”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth: “So, we have the funding to cover down on contingencies, especially ones as important as maintaining law and order in a major American city. As far as training, all of the units on the ground have been fully trained in their capabilities of what they’re executing on the ground.”

During the hearing, Hegseth admitted that he did not know what legal authority Trump was using to deploy troops in L.A.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top