Hello and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We start with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting federal property in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Troop Information
An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been officially released.
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 stated publicly.
The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, 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 activated for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"The city's mayor should be in jail 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 remarks coincide with state military forces have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the federal administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump declared that the conflicting parties have agreed to a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- News of the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the core legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might more accurately described as partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to oppose the government's extraordinary use of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been murdered by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.
