Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign claimed she drew a crowd of more than 75,000 people in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to hear her speech at the Ellipse, the site of Donald Trump’s infamous 2021 speech exhorting supporters to “fight like hell” in the moments just before the January 6 Capitol riot.
If its own early estimate is to be believed, the Harris event drew about 22,000 more people than the Trump speech, whose crowd was estimated by the House committee investigating the Capitol riot to be about 53,000 people.
Trump routinely exaggerates his crowd, with January 6 2021 being no exception. He has claimed that he had as many people in attendance that day as Martin Luther King Jr attracted for his “I Have a Dream” speech near the Lincoln Memorial, on August 28 1968.
Estimates suggest King’s crowd was actually closer to 250,000 – about five times as big as Trump’s on January 6.
Speaking at the Ellipse, a park between the White House and the National Mall, Harris sought to paint a clear contrast between herself and her Republican opponent and offer a “closing argument” to voters.
“America, we know what Donald Trump has in mind. More chaos. More division. And policies that help those at the very top and hurt everyone else. I offer a different path. And I ask for your vote,” Harris told the crowd.
“And here is my pledge to you: I pledge to seek common ground and common sense solutions to make your lives better,” she added. “I am not looking to score political points. I am looking to make progress.”
The message could not be more different than Trump’s speech at the site, where he made false claims about the election and railed against Republicans who would not go along with his plan to halt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 win.
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 certification 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.”
According to testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson during the January 6 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.
On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump has taken to describing the events surrounding January 6 as non-violent, refering to the day as a “peaceful transfer of power” and a day of “love and peace.”