Hello and welcome to the most recent updates in American political affairs. We start 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 unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on background basis in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been made public.
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 said online.
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 five hundred personnel are under the Northern Command and have been deployed for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide 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 failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"The city's mayor should be in prison for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as state military forces have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the Trump administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump declared that the conflicting parties have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and release captured individuals and detained persons.
- News of the Gaza agreement was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and deferred to Kristi Noem. 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 witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" organized by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might more accurately described as partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- GOP senators voted down a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
