Greetings and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We start 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, as confirmed by authorities.
Deployment Details
An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Chicago area, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on background basis in order to reveal operational details that have not been made public.
The troops are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities 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, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the Northern Command and have been activated for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the personnel were equipped.
Background Situation
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded 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 not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments coincide with state military forces have started deployment in the Chicago area at the order of the Trump administration, despite objections from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.
Other Updates
- The president announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free captured individuals and detained persons.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be awarded the peace award 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 fundamental legal concept that mandates that the government provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the president on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers cover leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators 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 destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The correct number of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.
