President Donald Trump and a list of other high-profile speakers will address “Stop the Steal” protesters on Wednesday, Jan. 6, ahead of an effort by some congressional Republicans to challenge the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college victory, Breitbart News has learned.
Thousands of Trump supporters are expected to gather in Washington, DC, for the occasion, and members of Trump’s team have been brought in to help organize the event which is officially being hosted by Women for America First.
The main event will happen on the Ellipsis at the White House—informally called “the President’s Lawn”—a source familiar with the organizational efforts said. The president tweeted Sunday morning that he will be there on Wednesday.
The president is expected to deliver remarks beginning at around 11 a.m. He will cap off an event at which several other high-profile names, including Kimberly Guilfoyle, Amy Kremer, Rudy Giuliani, Katrina Pierson, Boris Ephsteyn, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, Diamond and Silk, Georgia State Rep. Vernon Jones, Roger Stone, Benny Johnson, Scott Presler, Bernie Kerik, and Ali Alexander are all among those expected to speak, per a source involved in the matter.
Many of these speakers, and others, will also speak on Tuesday, Jan. 5—the day before the official festivities—at an event at Freedom Plaza in downtown Washington, DC. But the main event is on Wednesday, at the Ellipsis at the White House.
The doors for the White House Ellipsis event will open at 7 a.m. on Wednesday, and while event-goers will not need to formally enter White House grounds through a White House gate there will be Secret Service checkpoints on the way in. Technically, event-goers do not need to register or have tickets, but are being encouraged to RSVP on the website MarchtoSaveAmerica.com.
The official program will begin around 9 a.m., and again will be capped by Trump’s speech beginning around 11 a.m. When the president finishes his remarks, organizers then will lead a march up to the U.S. Capitol where they are expected to arrive around 1 p.m.—the time during which the new Congress, which is being sworn in on Sunday, will consider certification of the electoral college results.
More than a hundred House Republicans are expected to challenge the certification of the electoral college results, and they will be joined by at least a dozen Senate Republicans. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) was the first one to announce he would join House GOP challenges last week, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) led an effort this weekend of 11 more Senate Republicans to join the cause.
With numbers like this, the effort is by far the most serious in modern history to challenge, via the process of Congress certifying the electoral college results, an election. There have been other attempts, like after Trump’s win in 2016 in early 2017 some House Democrats tried to challenge the results but did not get a senator on board with their challenge. Also, in early 2005, some House Democrats joined with then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to challenge then-President George W. Bush’s re-election. That effort failed, as vast majorities in both chambers of Congress rejected it.
This effort is similarly expected to fail, as the Democrats control the U.S. House so despite the impressive showing of more than 100 House Republicans siding with Trump he will fall short of a majority in that chamber. Similarly, some Senate Republicans—ranging from Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) to Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) to Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) and even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—have said they recognize Biden as the legitimate president-elect and will not go along with this effort.
Therefore, given that the Senate GOP majority is tight—currently 52 members, which may change depending on what happens in Tuesday’s runoff elections in Georgia where Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) and David Perdue (R-GA) face Democrats Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff respectively—there are already not enough votes for Trump to even get a majority in the GOP-controlled Senate.
Nonetheless, the success of those cheering this challenge on in getting as many members of Congress as they have gotten on board this fight—even if it is doomed to fail no matter what—is remarkable. It also resembles the anger and fury of the GOP base in the wake of the Nov. 3 contest, and signals that Trump base voters are seeking fighters in the future for the party. But it is also a tough balancing act for GOP leaders, as they seek to show the base they are willing to fight but also attempt to move forward with the reality of an incoming Biden administration that is fast-approaching in just a couple weeks.
The U.S. Senate has not started holding hearings for Biden’s cabinet picks, and may not start until after the inauguration. A large part of what will determine Biden’s administration post selections’ fates looms in Georgia on Tuesday, as those runoffs will ascertain which party controls the U.S. Senate for the foreseeable future and could mean the difference between some of Biden’s selections getting confirmed or not.
But the energy on the right as evidenced by the thousands of Trump supporters who months after the election will still descend on Washington, DC, this week is something Republicans will seek to harness in the future as they go into battle with the incoming Biden administration and as they seek to retake the House majority in 2022 after winning unexpected gains in the 2020 congressional elections.
Ultimately, too, this will all culminate in the 2024 White House battle, with what is expected to be a huge field of potential contenders bidding for their shot at Trump’s mantle, assuming he doesn’t run again which is no foregone conclusion.
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