Hello and welcome to the current developments in US politics. We begin with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement 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, as stated by a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency 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) facilities and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.
The forces, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the military command and have been deployed for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the troops were armed.
Background Situation
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing 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.
"The city's mayor should be in jail for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's remarks come as state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the direction of the federal administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- The president declared that the conflicting parties have agreed to a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be given the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that requires that the authorities provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" organized by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called political content creators. The influencers cover leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the administration's extraordinary use of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's false claim that large numbers of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.
