Hello and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We start with the report that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has started protecting federal property 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, as stated by a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on background basis in order to reveal operational details that have not been made public.
The troops are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, 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 500 troops 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.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment 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.
"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as state military forces have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump declared that the conflicting parties have agreed to a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- News of the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who called on 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 referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the authorities provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The influencers cover leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans rejected a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
