Live updates: Trump administration news; DHS funding talks continue

The DC National Guard deployed by President Donald Trump in the capital as part of his federal surge is on track to spend more than Washington’s police force on an annual basis, according to a new report from Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee.

The Guard mission is due to cost $602 million on an annual basis, the report found, compared to $599 million for the 2026 Metropolitan Police Department budget.

The report also details what National Guard members have done in the city and warns that the deployment “blurs the distinction between the military and civilian law enforcement.”

Local officials, including DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, have long complained that MPD’s budget is too small and that the department has lacked the necessary funding to increase the number of officers on the force, which is currently hundreds short of its target size.

Trump and his administration have touted the significant decline in murder rates in the city, which dropped 32% in 2025 compared to 2024, which saw a matching 32% decline from the year before.

The report says that National Guard representatives told Senate staff that the Guard is “a lousy tool for fixing gun crime,” one of the big issues facing the district, and that the National Guard is not deployed in Southeast DC, which suffers from the highest rates of violent crime in the district.

According to the report, the National Guard has kept some numbers on this effort in DC — including 44 uses of Narcan, preventing a stabbing and helping to deliver a baby. Guard members have also packed “6,030 pounds of food, painted 270 feet of fence, and pruned 65 trees.”