Greetings and welcome to the most recent developments in US politics. We start with the news 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.
Troop Information
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Chicago area, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on background basis in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been made public.
The military personnel are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.
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 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been deployed for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"Chicago Mayor should be in prison for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the order of the Trump administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- The president declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- Reports about the Gaza agreement was applauded by GOP legislators, 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 highly incorrect explanation of the core legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the administration 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 neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans rejected a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to counter the government'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 false claim that large numbers of people have been murdered by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: one.
