President Donald Trump’s “Make DC Safe and Beautiful” mission is closing out its first year with nearly 9,700 National Guard troops having rotated into Washington, D.C., since Aug. 11, 2025.
The mission, which has put Guard members from across the country in hotels while they support public safety operations in the capital, is expected to continue for at least two more years unless Trump orders otherwise.
Brig. Gen. Leland Blanchard, interim commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, told reporters Monday that the value of the deployment cannot be measured only by spreadsheets and crime charts, though Washington naturally tried to do exactly that.
Blanchard said Guard members have delivered 788 medical assists, “ranging from administering CPR to applying tourniquets for gunshot victims;” reunited 43 lost children with their families, intervened in 262 fights, and administered Narcan to 325 people suffering overdoses.
Guard members also supported law enforcement 479 times over the year, which works out to a little more than once per day during the mission.
“Those are not simply numbers. Those are not just data points,” Blanchard said. “Each of those represents fathers, mothers, children, people who have received emergency care, been returned to parents, and families, had their lives saved from opioid overdoses, or were involved in violent situations brought under control before further harm was done.”
According to Blanchard, Guard teams have also stepped into dangerous moments on the D.C. Metro, including stopping a sexual assault in progress during a “ride the rail” mission.
He said troops also recently intervened against a knife wielding would be attacker, another reminder that visible manpower on the street can matter when seconds count and local leaders have spent years pretending good intentions are a public safety plan.
Blanchard pointed to Starburst Plaza in northeast Washington, long known as a hub for drug activity, as one example of the Guard’s visible effect.
During an Aug. 1 visit there, he said he watched an Air National Guard member administer Narcan, “saving a life on the scene.”
“A few minutes later, a young teenager rode by on his scooter, stopped, and said, ‘I’ve never seen this place so clean,’” Blanchard said.
That kind of on the ground change is exactly what Trump’s supporters expected from a mission built around presence, deterrence, and direct intervention rather than another round of taxpayer funded excuses.
Still, the cost remains a major question, because even successful missions in the capital come with a Washington sized bill.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated the D.C. deployment costs $55 million per month, while a new estimate provided to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, projects another $1.4 billion through the expected end of the mission in January 2029.
Based strictly on reported Narcan uses, that would amount to more than $2 million in mission costs per overdose reversal, though that calculation leaves out medical assists, crime deterrence, child reunifications, and law enforcement support.
Plans are underway to move Guard members from hotels into apartments through a $292 million contract awarded in July to corporate lodging company Placemakr, a shift Blanchard said should save about $90 million and place troops “closer and more responsive” to their assigned areas.
There are currently just over 4,600 Guard troops in Washington, Blanchard said, and that number is expected to dip as summer events and 250th anniversary activities wind down.
A May study by the nonpartisan Niskanen Center found the deployment correlated with sharp drops in certain crimes, especially vehicle theft and other opportunistic property crimes in highly visible public spaces.
“The implication is sharp,” the study found. “The National Guard deployment appears to have deterred opportunistic property offending, exactly the category of crime most sensitive to visible, high-presence enforcement on the street. Violent crime was unmoved.”
Army 2nd Lt. Harry Siegel and Sgt. 1st Class Nikolay Bashko, both assigned to Joint Task Force District of Columbia as part of the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, talk with Metropolitan Police Department officers near Nationals Park in Washington, Aug. 19, 2025.
Asked about that analysis, Blanchard said it showed “there’s a positive impact where the Guard is on crime,” although he noted the authors “disagree with some of the locations” where troops have been assigned.
“As we move forward, what we’ll do is bring the same impact that we’re seeing,” he said, referring to the recent movement into Starburst Plaza.
“We have definitely seen a significant impact there,” Blanchard added. “I think we’re going to continue to bring that impact across the city as we expand.”
The Guard is now moving into the next phase of the D.C. mission, though Blanchard offered few specifics beyond identifying higher crime areas such as Ward 8 and the Trinidad neighborhood.
“We’ll still be downtown, and we’ll still be in the neighborhoods that we’re in right now,” he said. “We’ll just shift some of those resources, and again, working in coordination with federal law enforcement and the Metropolitan Police Department, reallocate and repurpose some of those personnel.”
