Hello and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We start with the report that a small number of state military forces has begun guarding government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been made public.
The troops are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and police officers, 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, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the Northern Command and have been deployed for 60 days. The official wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the personnel were equipped.
Background Situation
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for 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) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in prison for failing to protect Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. Trump's remarks come as national guard troops have started deployment in the Chicago area at the direction of the Trump administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.
Additional Developments
- Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
- During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers cover leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to oppose the government's extraordinary use of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been killed by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.
