Hello and welcome to the most recent updates in US politics. We start with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to discuss operational details that have not been made public.
The troops are in the city 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 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 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the troops were armed.
Background Situation
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, 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 jail for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's remarks come as national guard troops have started deployment in the Chicago area at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.
Additional Developments
- The president declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- Reports about the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and referred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more similar to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to counter the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that large numbers of people have been killed by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.
