Hello and welcome to the latest 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 element of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been made public.
The troops are in the city 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 300 from Illinois, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles 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 jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois 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 posted 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 state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- Donald Trump announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
- News of the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might more accurately described as political content creators. The influencers report on liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more similar to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators rejected a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's ability to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the government's extraordinary use of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in the Oregon city. The correct number of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
