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, as confirmed by authorities.
Deployment Details
An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Greater Chicago region, as stated by 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 military personnel are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.
The forces, along with about 300 from Illinois, had reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the Northern Command and have been activated for two months. The official wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the personnel were equipped.
Political Context
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, charging them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in prison for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker 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 Chicago area at the direction of the federal administration, despite objections from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.
Other Updates
- The president declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and release captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
- News of the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the authorities provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers cover leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans rejected a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to counter the administration's extraordinary use of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least a participant echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
