Kamala Harris to give closing election speech at spot where Trump riled up crowd before Jan 6 attack
Vice President Kamala Harrisplans to give a major campaign speech this coming Tuesday at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., the park just outside the White House where Donald Trump in 2021 called on his supporters to march on Congress in the moments leading up to the January 6 insurrection.
Campaign officials said the speech, a week before election day, will serve as a “closing argument,” where Harris, a former prosecutor, will make her final case against Donald Trump before a “jury” of the American people.
According to a permit application obtained by CNN, the event is expected to draw a roughly 7,500-person crowd and feature four to five individuals speaking.
The campaign reportedly originally sought to have the speech take place on the National Mall.
Harris’s appearance at the Ellipse will stand in stark contrast to her 2024 rival’s infamous speech at the location, which preceded a riot at the Capitol linked to nine deaths.
In recent days, Trump has described his January 6 speech as part of a “day of live” where “nothing” was “done wrong.”
During the speech, Trump called on his supporters to march on the Capitol.
Though Trump told supporters to “peacefully and patriotically” make their voices heard, the Republican also used the speech to pressure his vice president, Mike Pence, to suspend the ceritification of Joe Biden’s election win and called on MAGA fans to “fight like hell” to preserve their country.
“We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he told the crowd, as he repeated false claims that the election had been stolen from him.
He told the crowd: “And by the way, does anybody believe that Joe had 80 million votes? Does anybody believe that? He had 80 million computer votes. It’s a disgrace. There’s never been anything like that. You could take third-world countries. Just take a look. Take third-world countries. Their elections are more honest than what we’ve been going through in this country. It’s a disgrace. It’s a disgrace.”
He told them to go up to the Capitol and said he would join them, although a congressional hearing into the riot heard testimony that the Secret Service prevented him from going for security reasons.
According to testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson during the hearings, Trump had reason to believe some of the crowd were armed. She said he wanted the magnetometers being used to check for weapons taken away so that the crowd would fill up more quickly.
“I don’t f***ing care that they have weapons,” Trump said according to Hutchinson. “They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f***ing mags away.”
Trump is facing federal criminal charges in Washington for his attempts to subvert his 2020 loss
Observers worry that some of the Republican officials who helped stymie Trump’s spurious attempts to overturn the 2020 results won’t be able to contain another potential challenge to the election in 2024.
Figures aligned with the Make American Great Again movement have reportedly been training thousands of people around the country on how to challenge election results ahead of Election Day, based on conspiracy theories and false claims.
The Trump campaign, for its part, appears confident heading into the election.
Senator JD Vance said yesterday he believes the Trump campaign has a 60 percent chance of winning.
Our poll tracker, meanwhile, shows Harris with a less than two percent lead over Trump.