Critics have questioned the president’s “anti-crime” rationale for keeping the National Guard in the nation’s capital.
President Donald Trump plans to keep the National Guard deployed in Washington, D.C. , until Inauguration Day 2029 in a move that constitutional experts andThe president first deployed troops in August 2025 after declaring a “crime emergency,” even though violent crime was at a 30-year low.
The administration ended the emergency declaration a month later, but the troop presence continued. Over the past few weeks, theThe National Guard has been busy during a “summer surge” policing anyone who gets near President Trump’s botched renovation of the Reflecting Pool. Now the Pentagon has confirmed to NPR that the troops will remain for another two and a half years, unless the president decides otherwise.
Experts have warned that an “emergency” that lasts for years is not really an emergency, and that the presence of thousands of armed soldiers on the streets of the nation’s capital was a shock that does not bode well for the health of American democracy. Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of Liberty and National Security at the Brennan Center for Justice, told NPR that at best Trump was trying to normalize the use of the military as a domestic police force—which is generally illegal outside of Washington, D.C.
—and at worst planning to use the troops to interrupt the transition of power after the 2028 election.
“Given what happened in January 2021, that should send up major red flags,” she said, referring to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot in which Trump’s supporters tried to overturn his election loss. For now, the troops are mostly performing “presence patrols,” meaning they walk around popular parts of the city in small groups to act as a deterrent against crime and allow law enforcement to focus on other areas.
The number “86” is widely known in the service industry to mean to mean an item on the menu is no longer available or that a person is not welcome, while Trump is the 47th president of the United States. The soldiers have been deputized as special police by the U.S. Marshals and issued firearms, which according to NPR is rare, but are not authorized to make arrests. They can, however, detain suspects until arresting officers arrive.
Multiple studies have found that the National Guard presence has had little to no effect on violent crime, which was already trending downward before the surge, NPR reported. Last year, National Guard troops deployed to fight violent crime in Washington, D.C. , kept busy by helping with beautification projects around the city.
At the current rate, the deployment is expected to cost between $2.5 billion and $3.4 billion if continued through 2028, according to the nonpartisan watchdog Project on Government Oversight.
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