Greetings and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We start with the report that a small number of state military forces has started protecting federal property in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Troop Information
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 reveal operational details that have not been officially released.
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 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 spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the troops were armed.
Background Situation
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments coincide with state military forces have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the Trump administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- The president declared that the conflicting parties have agreed to a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and free captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be given the peace award this week, but received with greater caution 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, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the core legal principle that requires that the government provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The content producers cover leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators voted down a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to counter the government's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- 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 political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
