Greetings and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We start with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Troop Information
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Chicago area, as stated by a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on background basis in order to discuss operational details that have not been officially released.
The military personnel are in the city to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.
The forces, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the military command and have been activated for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in prison for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as state military forces have started deployment in the Chicago area at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- The president announced 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 praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect definition of the core legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" organized by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might more accurately described as partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's ability to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's false claim that large numbers of people have been murdered by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
