Trump tweet sparks confusion over Guard mission
After he says U.S. won’t pay for plan, state officials confirm Pentagon funding.
SACRAMENTO — The awkward dance between Gov. Jerry Brown and the federal government over the National Guard jerked back toward discord Thursday, when President Trump said he would refuse to pay for a new deployment of troops — just hours after his administration said otherwise.
And a few hours later, California officials said they had received written confirmation from the Pentagon that the mission would indeed be funded.
Trump had earlier called Brown’s decision to approve 400 troops for a mission focused on combating transnational crime and drug smuggling a “charade” in a tweet.
“We need border security and action, not words!” the president wrote.
A spokesman for Brown pointed to a tweet written Wednesday night by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, thanking the California governor for his efforts. Trump was meeting Thursday with Nielsen at his Mar-a-Lago estate not long after his tweet was posted.
A tweet later posted by the California National Guard said that almost three hours after Trump’s comment, the state received “written confirmation from the Pentagon” to fund the mission as outlined by Brown the day before.
“In short, nothing has changed today,” a subsequent Guard tweet said.
Brown was the last of the nation’s border governors to respond to Trump’s insistence this month that National Guard troops were needed to assist with immigration-related duties at the U.S.-Mexico border. And he has consistently refused to allow California troops to engage in any mission related to federal immigration law.
“This will not be a mission to build a new wall,” Brown wrote last week to Nielsen and Defense Secretary James N. Mattis. “It will not be a mission to round up women and children or detain people escaping violence and seeking a better life.”
Exactly what the California operations will cost remains unclear, as state officials have said it will depend on decisions made once the mission begins. The funds would not be transferred to the state, but instead would be paid directly by the Department of Defense.
Trump has critiqued California several times over the last few days, often writing tweets that embrace the actions by some cities and counties to join his administration’s lawsuit against the state’s “sanctuary” laws limiting its role in immigration enforcement. He made similar comments to reporters Thursday afternoon.
“If you look at what’s happening in California with sanctuary cities — people are really going the opposite way,” Trump said. “They don’t want sanctuary cities. There’s a little bit of a revolution going on in California.”