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.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on background basis in order to discuss operational details that have not been made public.
The troops are in the city to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.
The troops, 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 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been activated for two months. The official wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the troops were armed.
Background Situation
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, accusing them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks come as state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the order of the federal administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- The president declared that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- Reports about the Gaza agreement was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be given the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Palestinian Americans.
- During presidential gathering, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the core legal principle that requires that the government provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might more accurately described as partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans rejected a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the military 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 Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.
