Greetings and welcome to the most recent 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, according to officials.
Deployment Details
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 Associated Press on background basis in order to reveal operational details that have not been made public.
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 said online.
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 military command and have been activated for 60 days. The official wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the troops were armed.
Background Situation
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"Chicago Mayor should be in prison for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks come as national guard troops have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.
Additional Developments
- The president announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
- News of the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary 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 contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted 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 similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to oppose the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been murdered by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
