12 p.m. Donald Trump gives rally speech before insurrection

Donald Trump gave a speech before a crowd of his supporters prior to the US Capitol riot at around noon on Jan. 6, 2021. 

He began his speech by criticizing the media and commenting on the number of people in attendance. “Media will not show the magnitude of this crowd. Even I, when I turned on today, I looked, and I saw thousands of people here,” Donald Trump said. “But you don’t see hundreds of thousands of people behind you because they don’t want to show that.” 

He then went on to discuss election fraud- “Big Tech” and the “Radical-Left”, stealing the election victory from him. Trump continued and encouraged the crowd to “Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated,” Donald Trump said. 

“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” He concluded the speech by calling Democrats “hopeless” and “So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.”