Hello and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We start with the report 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, as confirmed by authorities.
Troop Information
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been officially released.
The troops are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.
The forces, along with about 300 from Illinois, 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 activated for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the personnel were equipped.
Background Situation
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in jail for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments come as state military forces have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the federal administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- The president announced that the conflicting parties have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and release captured individuals and detained persons.
- Reports about the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" organized by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might more accurately described as political content creators. The content producers report on liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the administration's extraordinary use of the armed forces 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 significant amounts of people have been killed by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
