How barricaded lawmakers and aides sounded urgent pleas for help as police lost control — The Washington Post
“For almost two months leading up to that day, Trump had alleged massive fraud in his November election loss.
He had applauded supporters, calling them “patriots,” when they converged twice before in Washington to parrot Trump’s message that his second term had been stolen through wild conspiracy theories of voting-machine fraud.
On Dec. 19, five days after the electoral college convened to finalize states’ counts, the president for the first time advertised and endorsed a third such protest. This one would be held on the day that Congress would take the final step of counting the electoral college votes in a joint session, cementing Biden’s victory.
“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Trump tweeted. “Be there, will be wild!”
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“By around 1 p.m., as the joint session began, the mood in the crowd outside began to shift. Trump had just given a one-hour speech to thousands of supporters amassed on the Ellipse near the White House, excoriating his enemies and reiterating his baseless claims of fraud. GOP lawmakers, he emphasized, needed to take a stand.
“We’re going to the Capitol,” he said. “We’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”
The president added:
“If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”