Foreign policy experts were left stunned on Wednesday after The Intercept obtained and published new details on the scope of President Donald Trump’s unprecedented use of the military in American cities.
According to the outlet, around 35,000 federal troops had been deployed to American cities this year, a staggering 75% increase over the outlet’s previous estimation of nearly 20,000 in July. Federal troops drawn from the Air Force, Army, Marines, Navy and National Guard have been deployed by Trump to five states this year: Arizona, California, Florida, New Mexico, and Texas, as well as to Washington, D.C.
“The Trump administration has forced 35,000 troops into a role they did not sign up for: intimidating their own communities as pawns in Trump’s authoritarian power grab,” said Sara Haghdoosti, executive director for Win Without War, a D.C.-based organization that advocates for diplomatic foreign policy adoption, speaking with The Intercept.
“The scale of the abuse of both our communities and troops who signed up to defend the Constitution and now are routinely being ordered to violate it is breathtaking.”
Trump has shown no signs of winding down his domestic use of the military either, threatening earlier this month to deploy the military to Chicago, alongside an ominous AI-generated image of the Chicago skyline amid flames and military invasion.
The Department of Defense, under the leadership of Secretary Pete Hegseth, has dodged questions in the past about the scope of Trump’s use of the military in American cities, leading The Intercept’s Nick Turse to suggest that the “true number of federal troops deployed may be markedly higher.”
Hanna Homestead, who helps lead the National Priorities Project, a nonprofit federal government research group, said that the cost of Trump’s use of the military could be staggering, but without any official confirmations from the DOD, it continues to remain unknown.
“It’s impossible to know exactly how much the rapidly expanding police state is costing taxpayers,” Homestead said, speaking with The Intercept.
“The aptly renamed Department of War refuses to publicly disclose the total number of troops deployed on U.S. streets, or the costs of the National Guard’s participation in the illegal, ineffective, and inhumane mass deportation agenda.”
According to the exclusive data obtained by The Intercept, approximately 23,866 Army National Guard troops have been deployed within the United States since Trump took office in January. The remaining 11,100 or so troops were mostly made up of those from the Marines and Naval Reserve.