Greetings and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We begin with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops 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 officially released.
The military personnel are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties 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, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the Northern Command and have been activated for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the personnel were equipped.
Background Situation
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded 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) officers.
"The city's mayor should be in jail for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's remarks coincide with state military forces have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the Trump administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Palestinian Americans.
- During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect definition of the core legal principle that requires 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 president on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers cover liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more akin to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans voted down a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- 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 left-wing radicals in the Oregon city. The correct number of killings by political activists in Portland is: one.
