Hundreds of US President Donald Trump’s supporters on Tuesday began massing in Washington, a day ahead of a protest called by the outgoing US president who refuses to concede defeat in November last year’s election.
Coming from all corners of the US, the demonstrators said that they had answered Trump’s appeal to gather in the capital yesterday, when the US Congress is expected to certify US president-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
“My commander-in-chief called me and my Lord and Savior told me” to come, said Debbie Lusk, 66, a retired accountant from Seattle.
Photo: AFP
“We either take our country back, or it is no more,” she added.
Trump has said that he plans to address the rally, urging followers on Twitter to “arrive early” for his 11am speech, to be given at a site near the White House.
Last month, he wrote on Twitter that supporters should head to Washington for what he promised would be a “wild” day of protests.
Large parts of the downtown area were boarded up, with shops and businesses shuttered by the virus and amid fears of a repeat of the violence that rocked the city during racial justice protests last year.
Trump has refused to accept his election loss, making repeated and unfounded claims of fraud or vote rigging in the states where he was narrowly beaten.
Various courts have rejected legal challenges from Trump’s team.
More than half of Republican voters believe Trump won or are not sure who did, a survey last month by researchers at top US universities, including Harvard, found.
That confusion was echoed by many of the mainly upbeat supporters who had gathered under gray skies at a chilly Freedom Plaza near the White House on Tuesday.
“We don’t trust the outcome of the elections,” said Chris Thomas, 69, a retired saleswoman wearing a Trump hat.
Thomas said she and her husband had come from Oregon because they “believe in the freedom of America,” and to show support for Trump’s economic policies that helped their son’s wine-chiller business prosper.
Warming up the crowd with speeches were former Trump adviser Roger Stone and former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn, each recently pardoned by Trump after being swept up in connection to former US special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Moscow.
Flynn told members of the US Congress: “Those of you who are feeling weak tonight, those of you who don’t have the moral fiber in your body, get some tonight because tomorrow we the people are going to be here, and we want you to know that we will not stand for a lie.”
At least 300 supporters had gathered by noon, and almost all of them were flouting Washington’s mask-wearing order.
Several of them said that the media had exaggerated the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 357,000 people in the US.
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