🔗 Share this article

Greetings and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We begin with the news that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has begun guarding federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Deployment Details

An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on background basis in order to discuss operational details that have not been officially released.

The troops are in the city to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.

The forces, along with about 300 from Illinois, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been activated for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the personnel were equipped.

Background Situation

It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois 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. "Governor Pritzker also!"

Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have started deployment in the Chicago area at the direction of the Trump administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.

Other Updates

• The president announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and detained persons.
• Reports about the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, 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 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the core legal principle 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 "antifa roundtable" hosted by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might more accurately described as partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers cover leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
• GOP senators voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to oppose the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
• During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been killed by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The correct number of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.