Whitmer warns Michigan Guard must not support Trump crime mission

Gretchen Whitmer told Michigan’s National Guard chief that the state’s troops in Washington, D.C., were to support only America 250 events and not Donald Trump’s crime-fighting task force, and she said she would pull them out if the mission changed.

The warning sharpened the dispute over who controls Guard members once they leave Michigan and enter a federal deployment in the capital. Trump first sent hundreds of troops to Washington in August 2025, framing the move as a crime crackdown even as crime was already declining, and the force has since swelled to more than 4,800 Guard members drawn from D.C. and almost two dozen states. The Congressional Budget Office has put the cost at more than $2.8 million per day.

Michigan now has 161 Guard members in the city, part of a small wave of deployments by Democratic-led states ahead of America 250 celebrations. North Carolina and Kentucky each sent one Guard member, while Minnesota sent more than 100 last week. Kentucky then recalled its lone member after that person was reportedly diverted to the D.C. Joint Task Force without Gov. Andy Beshear’s knowledge or consent.

Whitmer’s order went to the head of the Michigan National Guard on Monday and drew a line between the celebration mission and Trump’s broader law-and-order operation, officially called the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Mission. The distinction matters because it tests whether governors can still claw back their troops when the federal government changes the assignment after deployment.

The four Democratic-led states involved in the recent deployments have also backed litigation challenging the D.C. deployment, including an amicus brief filed as recently as May. That legal posture underscores the same constitutional fault line Whitmer is now pressing in practice: whether state Guard troops, once sent into Washington, can be redirected by federal authorities over the objections of the governor who dispatched them.

The question sharpened further after video circulating online appeared to show people identifying themselves as Michigan National Guard members patrolling the Georgetown waterfront, an upscale area more than a mile from official America 250 event sites. The footage raised the possibility that state troops were being used beyond the narrow role their governors intended, in a city where Guard members have also been seen near the National Mall, D.C. residential streets and metro stops.