Hello and welcome to the latest developments in US politics. We begin with the report that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has started protecting federal property in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Chicago area, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on background basis in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been made public.
The troops are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.
The forces, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the military command and have been deployed for two months. The official wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"The city's mayor should be in prison for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks come as state military forces 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
- Donald Trump announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- News of the Middle East deal was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Palestinian Americans.
- During presidential gathering, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more similar to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans rejected a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to oppose the administration's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been killed by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: one.
