WASHINGTON – Democrat Kamala Harris will deliver her campaign's “closing argument” Tuesday from the same spot in Washington where Republican Donald Trump helped incite a mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
She chose the spot to draw a contrast between her vision for the country and Trump's continued lies about the 2020 election, and the risks she says his return to the White House would pose for the nation.
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In 2021, thousands of his supporters stood on the grassy Ellipse just off Constitution Avenue, not far from the Washington Monument, as an angry Trump told his supporters the election had been stolen from him.
“We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about," Trump told the crowd. “And to use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with: We will stop the steal. Today I will lay out just some of the evidence proving that we won this election and we won it by a landslide. This was not a close election.”
“ And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Some details on what led to Trump's Jan. 6 appearance on the Ellipse and what transpired.
The backdrop: A failed effort to overturn the election
Trump's speech came after weeks of failed legal challenges in which Trump claimed widespread voter fraud. His attorneys put forward unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, including the idea that voting machines were created in Venezuela at the direction of Hugo Chavez. The challenges were roundly dismissed, including by judges who had been appointed by Trump himself or other Republicans.
Members of Trump's own Cabinet said there'd been no widespread fraud but the ideas were nonetheless embraced by supporters and persisted. Trump has since been criminally charged for his efforts to overturn the election.
Trump summons his supporters to DC on vote certification day
Congressional certification of the presidential vote results is normally a routine part of the electoral process. But Trump had been trying, through the failed lawsuits, and personal appeals to election officials, to overturn the results.
Trump tweeted on Dec. 19, 2020, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
In his speech, Trump cataloged his failed court arguments and told the crowd he hoped that then-Vice President Mike Pence would refuse to certify the results of the election when he stood before the legislators at the Capitol.
“I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so,” Trump said.
“Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election ... He has the absolute right to do it. We’re supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our Constitution.”
Trump went on to blame the “fake news media” and “radical-left Democrats” for stealing the election.
“All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats, which is what they’re doing. And stolen by the fake news media. That’s what they’ve done and what they’re doing. We will never give up, we will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.”
Trump instructs his supporters: ‘We’re going to the Capitol’
He told the crowd that day at the end of his speech it was time to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol with a rambling directive to get involved.
“I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we’re going to the Capitol, and we’re going to try and give ... the Democrats are hopeless — they never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we’re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don’t need any of our help. We’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”
“So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.”
The crowd heads to the Capitol. Trump does not
During congressional hearings on the events of Jan. 6, 2021, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson recounted how Trump was dismissive when told that some in his crowd at the Ellipse were armed.
“I was in the vicinity of a conversation where I overheard the president say something to the effect of, ‘I don’t effing care that they have weapons,’” Hutchinson said. “‘They’re not here to hurt me. ... Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here.’”
She also described Trump’s anger after officials told him he couldn’t accompany his supporters to the U.S. Capitol because of security concerns.
Trump went back to the White House instead. And as the violence at the Capitol unfolded, he sat at a table in a White House dining room watching the scene unfold on Fox News, according to congressional testimony.
Pat Cipollone, Trump’s top White House lawyer, told congressional investigators that multiple aides — including the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump — advised the president to say something to stop the violence.
Trump made no effort to call for increased law enforcement assistance at the Capitol. He did not call the defense secretary, the homeland security secretary or the attorney general.
As the president declined to call for help, Pence was hiding in the Capitol, just feet away from rioters. A noose was brought to the Capitol lawn and some cheered that they were going to hang the vice president.
At about 4:15 p.m., around three hours after they reached the Capitol, Trump tweeted a video message:
“We had an election that was stolen from us,” he said. “But you have to go home now,” he said. “We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt.”
Hours later, after the day had spiraled out of control, he tweeted: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.”
“Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!” he added.
Rioters stormed the Senate chamber and ransacked Capitol offices for hours. They beat and bloodied law enforcement, leaving roughly 140 injured. Seven people died in the wake of the attack, including a rioter shot by police, and officers who later killed themselves.
In 2024, a new campaign pinned on old grievances
More than 1,500 people have been charged in the Capitol siege in the years since.
Trump launched his general election campaign last March by not merely trying to rewrite the history of the Capitol attack, but positioning the violent siege and failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election as a cornerstone of his bid to return to the White House.
During a rally in Ohio, his first as the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee, Trump stood on stage, his hand raised in salute as a recorded chorus of prisoners in jail for their roles in the Jan. 6 attack sang the national anthem.
“They were unbelievable patriots,” Trump said. Having previously vowed to pardon the rioters, he promised to help them “the first day we get into office.”
Trump, during a Univision town hall just two weeks ago, claimed the day was peaceful.
“That was a day of love from the standpoint of the millions, it’s like hundreds of thousands, it could have been the largest group I’ve ever spoken before,” he claimed. "They asked me to speak, I went, and I spoke. And I used the term peacefully and patriotically.”