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Hello and welcome to the latest developments in American political affairs. We begin with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.

Troop Information

An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Chicago area, as stated by a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to 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 secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.

The troops, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the Northern Command and have been deployed for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the personnel were equipped.

Political Context

It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.

"The city's mayor should be in prison 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 coincide with national guard troops have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the order of the Trump administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.

Other Updates

• Donald Trump announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
• News of the Middle East deal was applauded by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be given the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
• During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the government provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
• All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
• GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the government's unprecedented deployment of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
• During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.