MAGA Marchers Sup­port Trump in DC Streets

Sup­port­ers of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump attend pro-Trump march­es, Sat­ur­day in Wash­ing­ton. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Thou­sands of Don­ald Trump sup­port­ers ral­lied in Wash­ing­ton on Sat­ur­day, with the pres­i­dent mak­ing a dri­ve-past in his motor­cade as he sticks to claims that mass fraud denied him elec­tion victory.

Marchers close to the White House greet­ed Trump’s brief appear­ance with wild cheers, wav­ing and whis­tles, hold­ing signs and flags say­ing “Best prez ever,” “Stop the steal” and “Trump 2020: Keep Amer­i­ca Great.”

Sev­er­al thou­sand peo­ple had gath­ered by noon on the city’s Free­dom Plaza, with more still arriv­ing from all sides, wav­ing flags and shout­ing “Four More Years” in a fes­tive atmos­phere rem­i­nis­cent of a Trump rally.

With right-wing mili­tia group the Proud Boys also among those ral­ly­ing, a large secu­ri­ty pres­ence was deployed in the cap­i­tal to pre­vent clash­es with anti-Trump events sched­uled out­side the Supreme Court.

The lat­est tal­lies gave Trump’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger Joe Biden a sol­id final win in the state-by-state Elec­toral Col­lege that decides the pres­i­den­cy, with 306 votes against Trump’s 232. Two hun­dred sev­en­ty votes are required for election.

But Mar­gari­ta Urtubey, 49, a horse breed­er who flew in from Mia­mi with her sis­ter, told AFP the elec­tion was “so cor­rupt,” adding “Trump won by a land­slide. We are here to march for the ‘stop the steal’ of this elec­tion, to make our voice heard.”

Dar­i­on Schaublin, who drove from Colum­bus, Ohio, came to protest the fact “the whole sys­tem’s rigged… in the way that the infor­ma­tion is get­ting to the people.”

“The truth nev­er actu­al­ly gets out,” said the 26-year-old, who says he lost his job in a restau­rant after refus­ing to wear a mask as pro­tec­tion from COVID-19.

Schaublin esti­mat­ed there was a “95%” chance Trump would not have a sec­ond term — “and I’m not sure of the legit­i­ma­cy of that.”

The final two unde­clared states were called on Fri­day by US tele­vi­sion net­works — with Biden win­ning the for­mer Repub­li­can strong­hold of Geor­gia in a close race, and Trump win­ning North Carolina.

Pres­i­dent Trump con­tin­ues to impede Biden’s abil­i­ty to pre­pare for his tran­si­tion ahead of inau­gu­ra­tion on Jan­u­ary 20 and has filed numer­ous law­suits — unsuc­cess­ful­ly — to chal­lenge vote counts around the country.

On Fri­day, a judge in Michi­gan issued anoth­er rejec­tion of Repub­li­can claims of fraud.

‘Time will tell’

Trump said Fri­day that “time will tell” if he remains pres­i­dent, in a momen­tary slip of his unprece­dent­ed refusal to con­cede his elec­tion defeat.

Trump broke his silence after a week with­out on-cam­era com­ments, speak­ing at a Rose Gar­den event to her­ald the immi­nent autho­riza­tion of a coro­n­avirus vaccine.

Dur­ing a short speech about the vac­cine work, Trump insist­ed that he would nev­er again call for a lock­down to curb the virus’s spread.

Then he added, “What­ev­er hap­pens in the future, who knows which admin­is­tra­tion it will be, I guess time will tell.”

The hint of doubt came despite him con­tin­u­ing to claim that mass fraud robbed him of vic­to­ry in the Novem­ber 3 election.

Despite his own intel­li­gence offi­cials’ dec­la­ra­tion Thurs­day that the elec­tion was “the most secure in Amer­i­can his­to­ry,” Trump and his right-wing media allies show no sign of giv­ing up their quest to get the results overturned.

“Pres­i­dent Trump believes he will be Pres­i­dent Trump, have a sec­ond term,” spokes­woman Kayleigh McE­nany said on Fox News.

After dri­ving past demon­stra­tors in Wash­ing­ton, Trump head­ed Sat­ur­day to his golf club out­side the cap­i­tal on his reg­u­lar week­end routine.

Half a dozen sup­port­ers stood at one side of the entrance with Trump flags, and about the same num­ber stood on the oppo­site side with a big “Biden Har­ris” sign and one that said: “We vot­ed. You’re fired.”

Biden is steadi­ly prepar­ing for pow­er, with many world lead­ers con­grat­u­lat­ing him on his victory.

Chi­na was the lat­est nation on board, with a for­eign min­istry spokesman say­ing, “We express our congratulations.”

Source: news​max​.com / AFP 2020