Politics

Tens of thousands gather in Washington to support Trump

Washington, Nov 14 (efe-epa).- Tens of thousands of supporters of President Donald Trump took to the streets of the US capital on Saturday to protest the alleged theft of the Nov. 3 election, which saw the Republican incumbent’s bid for a second term thwarted by Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

Participants began streaming into Washington’s Freedom Plaza at dawn and hundreds were present when the presidential motorcade made a circuit of the square en route from the White House to Trump’s golf club in Virginia.

His followers, many wearing hats and T-shirts emblazoned with Trump’s campaign slogan, Make America Great Again (MAGA), cheered as the president smiled and waved from inside his limousine.

“We saw him (Trump) from a distance,” Terrelen, a 54-year-old woman from the Midwestern state of Indiana, told Efe.

Her husband, Jay, said that they made the long trip to Washington to show support for Trump, “the American way of life” and “legal elections.”

Both sporting MAGA hats, the couple repeated the president’s unsubstantiated claims about fraud in the election.

Jay, 55, said that the reversal of Trump’s initial advantage as ballots continued to be counted was “statistically impossible,” while Terrelen faulted the media for not “showing the electoral fraud.”

The real estate mogul has refused to concede defeat despite results showing that Biden, who served as vice president under Barack Obama, enjoys a lead of more than 5 million ballots in the nationwide popular vote and has an edge of 306-232 in electoral votes.

US media outlets, including Trump-friendly Fox News, acclaimed Biden as president-elect last Saturday based on the projected outcome in Pennsylvania, which put the Democrat over the 270 electoral votes needed to win.

Even so, Trump insists that Democrats are trying to steal the election and continues to pursue court challenges in a quixotic bid to overturn the outcome.

Most of those who turned out for the event, billed variously as the Million MAGA March, Stop the Steal and March for Trump, were white and few wore masks despite the threat of Covid-19, which has claimed 245,000 lives in the United States.

Police were out in force due to fears of potential clashes between marchers and counter-protesters, but though Washington is overwhelmingly Democratic, only a few dozen Trump opponents were visible and no incidents were reported.

The only instance of police intervention came outside the US Supreme Court, where cops separated Trumpers and anti-Trumpers as they exchanged expletive-laced tirades. EFE ssa/dr

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