Hello and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We start with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Chicago area, as stated by a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to reveal operational details that have not been officially released.
The military personnel are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.
The forces, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had reached on 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 two months. The official wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the troops were armed.
Background Situation
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in prison for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. Trump's comments coincide with national guard troops have started deployment in the Chicago area at the direction of the Trump administration, despite objections from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.
Other Updates
- The president announced that the conflicting parties have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- News of the Middle East deal was praised by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the government provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized 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 akin to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators voted down a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to counter the government's extraordinary use of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been killed by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
