Greetings and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We begin with the report that a limited contingent of state military forces has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to discuss operational details that have not been officially released.
The troops are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.
The forces, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the military command and have been activated for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, charging them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"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 Democrats. Trump's remarks coincide with state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump announced that the conflicting parties have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and free captured individuals and detained persons.
- News of the Gaza agreement was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be given the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation 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, Noem gave a highly incorrect explanation of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the authorities provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" organized by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more similar to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
