Greetings and welcome to the current developments in US politics. We start with the report that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Chicago area, as stated by a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to reveal operational details that have not been officially released.
The military personnel are in the urban area to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, 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 500 troops are under the military command and have been activated for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing 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.
"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the federal administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- The president announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- News of the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the core legal principle that mandates that the authorities provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" organized by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans rejected a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the administration's extraordinary use of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least a participant echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been killed by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
