Hello and welcome to the latest developments in US politics. We begin with the news that a limited contingent of state military forces has begun guarding federal property in the Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Troop Information
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Greater Chicago region, as stated by a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to reveal operational details that have not been officially released.
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 stated publicly.
The troops, 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 military command and have been activated for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in jail for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have started deployment in the Chicago area at the order of the Trump administration, despite objections from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.
Other Updates
- The president declared that the conflicting parties have accepted a tentative deal to cease hostilities 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 peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Palestinian Americans.
- During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the administration's extraordinary use of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least a participant echoed Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The correct number of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
