Hello and welcome to the latest developments in American political affairs. We start with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Troop Information
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to discuss operational details that have not been made public.
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 forces, 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 deployed for 60 days. The official wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the personnel were equipped.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, 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 failing to protect Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. Trump's remarks come as state military forces have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- The president announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- 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 Palestinian Americans.
- During presidential gathering, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a highly incorrect explanation of the core legal principle that requires that the authorities provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" organized by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more akin to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels 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: one.
