Greetings and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We begin with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Troop Information
An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Chicago area, according to 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 protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command said online.
The forces, along with about 300 from Illinois, had reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the military command and have been activated 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.
"The city's mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's remarks come as state military forces have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the Trump administration, despite objections from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- The president announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- News of the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
- During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect explanation of the core legal principle that requires that the government provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" organized by the president on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The content producers cover leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more similar to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators rejected a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military 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 large numbers of people have been killed by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
