Hello and welcome to the latest updates in American political affairs. We start with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Troop Information
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Chicago area, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been officially released.
The military personnel are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.
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 five hundred personnel are under the Northern 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 demanded the jailing 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 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 come as national guard troops have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the federal administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- The president announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and free captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
- News of the Middle East deal was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be given 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 referred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a highly incorrect explanation of the core legal principle that mandates that the authorities provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" organized by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's authority to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to oppose the administration's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
