Greetings and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We begin with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Troop Information
An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been made public.
The military personnel are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.
The forces, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had arrived 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 deployed for two months. The official wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the personnel were equipped.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in prison for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments coincide with national guard troops have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the Trump administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be awarded 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 deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the core legal principle that requires that the authorities provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might more accurately described as political content creators. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more akin to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to counter the administration's extraordinary use of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The correct number of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
