Hello and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We start with the news that a limited contingent of state military forces has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Chicago area, as stated by a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on background basis in order to reveal operational details that have not been made public.
The troops are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.
The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, 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 deployed for two months. The official wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded 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) officers.
"The city's mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have started deployment 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 Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During presidential gathering, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the president on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The influencers cover liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, 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 extraordinary use of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been murdered by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
