Hello and welcome to the current updates 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 assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Greater Chicago region, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on background basis in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been officially released.
The military personnel are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.
The troops, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had arrived 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 troops were armed.
Background Situation
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"Chicago Mayor should be in prison for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. Trump's remarks coincide with state military forces have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region 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.
- News of the Middle East deal was praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Palestinian Americans.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the core legal principle that requires that the authorities provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers cover leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators voted down a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to oppose the government's extraordinary use of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
