Hello and welcome to the most recent updates in US politics. We begin with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Chicago area, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on background basis in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been made public.
The military personnel are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.
The troops, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the military command and have been deployed for 60 days. The official wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the personnel were equipped.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in prison for failing to protect Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. Trump's remarks coincide with state military forces have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the federal administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- The president announced that the conflicting parties have agreed to a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- News of the Gaza agreement was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- During presidential gathering, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the authorities provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers cover liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans voted down a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's ability to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to counter the administration's extraordinary use of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
