SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Twenty states, all currently run by Republicans, are contributing troops to President Trump's National Guard anti-crime deployment in Washington, D.C. But five of those states elected Democratic governors in last week's elections, and calls are growing for those newly elected governors to pull their troops from the city. NPR's Kat Lonsdorf has been following all of this and joins us now Hey Kat.
KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: Hey, Scott.
DETROW: So first of all, what states are we talking?
LONSDORF: Well, we're talking about all of the states where voters flipped their governors from Republican to Democrat - Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, Nevada and Texas. All five of those states have been sending members of their National Guard to D.C. for many months now. Alaska is also looking likely to flip its governor, although that race hasn't been called yet, and if so, would also be part of this group. Alaska has been sending troops to the city, too.
DETROW: Let's say all of these new Democratic governors, come January, did decide to pull their troops from the city. How much of an impact would that make?
LONSDORF: Well, it would definitely have an impact on the number of troops here. A reminder, this deployment has been ongoing since August of last year. Trump has the authority to deploy the National Guard in D.C. as the president. Right now, there are a little more than 3,000 troops here, all federally funded but under the control of their respective governors. If all of the newly elected Democratic governors recalled their troops, that would mean more than 600 would leave.
That could also have an effect on the overall cost. Right now, this deployment has an estimated cost of about $1.8 million a day of taxpayer money. If the D.C. Guard or other states don't send replacement troops, this reduction would save about $400,000 a day. It would also have an impact for D.C. residents who, by and large, are against this deployment and have been protesting it for over a year now. Just last week, the city's council had a public hearing largely about the National Guard presence. That went on for more than nine hours because so many people wanted to voice their concerns. Members of the D.C. Council have called on the newly elected Democrats to pull their guard out as soon as possible.
DETROW: Have any of these new governors elects said anything about any of this?
LONSDORF: Well, I reached out to all five several times in the past few days to ask. None of them responded. One key state in this group is Georgia, which has the highest number of troops here of any state, more than 500. Georgia Governor-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms did criticize the mission in D.C. during her campaign, but has not yet said she will recall Georgia's troops. Iowa has more than 100 National Guard members here. Iowa Governor-elect Rob Sand did acknowledge the issue in an interview with a local outlet last week, but also hasn't said what his plans are.
DETROW: Let's step back, 'cause you've been covering this for a long time.
LONSDORF: Yeah.
DETROW: You mentioned this has been going on for more than a year here in D.C. The goal is to fight crime.
LONSDORF: Yeah.
DETROW: Has it done that?
LONSDORF: Well, President Trump has repeatedly called the deployment a success, saying it's driven down crime, but it's unclear what metrics he's using to determine that. Crime was already trending down in the city before this deployment and was at a 30-year low. Several studies have shown that the guard presence has had no impact on violent crime and has had minimal impact on opportunistic crime like petty theft.
DETROW: This is a moment where a lot of people are seeing the way that voters rejected a lot of the Trump administration, and they're wondering what comes next. Is there any sense of what the future will be for deployments like these, whether in D.C. or elsewhere?
LONSDORF: Yeah, this mission in D.C. is set to continue through the rest of Trump's second term, until January 2029. There's also still an ongoing federal deployment in Memphis, which is supported by that state's Republican governor. The courts have largely ruled against Trump's deployments, particularly ones that were done against the wishes of Democratic governors last year. But Stephen Miller is now White House chief of staff, and he was a loud voice for the domestic deployments. I've reported before about how he's publicly said for years that he'd like to use the National Guard to help with immigration enforcement. That's illegal, but this administration has been known to push the limits of the law, particularly around this. So now, with Miller in an even more prominent position in the administration, that is definitely something to watch.
DETROW: That is NPR's Kat Lonsdorf. Thank you so much.
LONSDORF: Thank you.
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