The Defense Department Has Spent $49M Feeding the National Guard in D.C.

The Department of Defense has spent over $49 million since October 2025 feeding National Guard members posted in D.C. It could spend another $20 million by the end of the year.

The money was spent on catered “breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight meals” for National Guard members deployed to D.C. as part of President Donald Trump’s Safe and Beautiful Task Force and Freedom 250 celebrations, according to four government contracts reviewed by The Washington Sun. One of the contract solicitations, covering a monthlong period over the summer for $9.9 million, said it would provide 13,200 meals a day.

It’s the latest figure ratcheting up the estimated price tag on the Guard’s presence in D.C., which has spurred protests from residents and D.C. Council members and ongoing litigation from the city’s attorney general. What started as a deployment of 800 troops — largely from the D.C. National Guard — expanded as of early August to 4,630 troops, and will continue through the remainder of Trump’s term.

The cost of activating, deploying and compensating 1,000 troops to a city would be $18 million to $21 million a month, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in January. The federal government recently announced it would spend $292 million housing troops in 2,000 “apartment-style lodging units” around the city through June 2027.

Three of the contracts have ended in the last year, and one still has an unspent $20 million through the end of the year. It’s unclear how much it will cost to feed troops through 2029 — these contracts largely cover a ramped-up presence of almost 5,000 troops over the summer.

The National Guard; Sardi’s Catering, a College Park-based caterer contracted for over $33 million of the work; and Bodwé-KVG JV, a Michigan-based federal contractor awarded a contract for up to $35.7 million, did not immediately respond to questions about the contracts or any further catering contracts the Defense Department has secured.