Hello and welcome to the latest developments in US politics. We start with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Greater Chicago region, as stated by a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on background basis in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been officially released.
The troops are in the urban area to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.
The forces, along with about 300 from Illinois, had reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the Northern Command and have been activated for two months. The official wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the personnel were equipped.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in jail for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments coincide with national guard troops have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the direction of the Trump administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- The president declared that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- News of the Middle East deal was applauded by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
- During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the authorities provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the president on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers cover liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to counter the government's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: one.
