Testifying before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense Tuesday, Hegseth initially refused to address how exactly his department’s overstretched budget would afford the sudden deployment of 700 Marines to Los Angeles—until he was backed into a corner. In the end, persistent questioning from the committee forced Hegseth to turn to his acting comptroller, Bryn Woollacott MacDonnell, to provide a figure for the unpopular deployment: $134 million.
“What is the current cost for what is taking place in California, and how is it going to affect this budget?” asked Representative Betty McCollum. “How much are these deployments going to cost, for both the Marines and the National Guard? And what training or duties are not taking place because of these deployments? Where in your limited budget, sir, are you going to find—in the remainder of this fiscal year—are you going to pull the money to cover these deployments? What holes are being created?”After jotting a note to himself, Hegseth appealed to McCollum’s shared background in Minnesota, where he claimed that protests had been “improperly” handled in 2020.
“I asked a budget question. Could the secretary please address the budget? Thank you,” said McCollum.
“Mister Chairman, if the secretary is not going to [answer] the budgetary questions, I will yield back my time if the secretary refuses to ask the budgetary questions put before him. They’re important,” McCollum said. “What training missions aren’t happening, where are you pulling the money from, and how are you planning this moving forward? These are budget questions that affect this committee and the decisions we’re going to be making in a couple of hours.”
Trump’s order violated the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law dating back to 1878, that forbids the government from using the military for law enforcement purposes. The White House could have bypassed the military doctrine by invoking the Insurrection Act, which allows the president to utilize the military during periods of rebellion or mass civil unrest, but had not done so by the time of the order. (Trump has openly discussed leveraging the 19th-century law to enact his agenda since his inauguration, but has still not invoked the Insurrection Act as of the time of publishing.)
The Marines are joining 4,100 National Guard members that Trump similarly tasked with disassembling the protests, against the wishes of local government officials. On Monday, California sued the Trump administration to roll back the National Guard’s deployment, citing logistical challenges that L.A. and state officials said would make it more difficult to safely handle the protests.
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