WASHINGTON — Democrat Kamala Harris will deliver her campaign’s “closing argument” Tuesday from the same location in Washington where Republican Donald Trump helped incite a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

She chose the location to contrast her view of the country with Trump’s continued lies about the 2020 election, and the risks she said his return to the White House would pose for the nation.

In 2021, thousands of his supporters stood on the grassy Ellipse just off Constitution Avenue, not far from the Washington Monument, as an angry Trump told his supporters that the election had been stolen from him.

“We’re not going to take this anymore and that’s what this is about,” Trump told the crowd. “And to use a favorite term that you all have truly come up with: we will stop the steal. Today I’m going to simply lay out some of the evidence that proves that we won this election and that we won it by a landslide. This was not a close election.

” And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country anymore. »

Some details on what led to Trump’s January 6 appearance on the Ellipse and what happened.

Trump’s speech came after weeks of unsuccessful legal challenges in which Trump claimed widespread election fraud. His lawyers have advanced baseless conspiracy theories, including the idea that voting machines were created in Venezuela under the leadership of Hugo Chávez. The challenges have been roundly rejected, including by judges appointed by Trump himself or other Republicans.

Trump cabinet members say there was no widespread fraud but these ideas were nevertheless adopted by their supporters and persisted. Trump has since been criminally charged for his efforts to overturn the election.

Congressional certification of presidential vote results is a normal part of the electoral process. But Trump had tried, through his unsuccessful trials, and personal appeals to elections officials, to cancel the results.

Trump tweeted on December 19, 2020: “Big protest in Washington on January 6th. Be there, it will be wild!

In his speech, Trump cataloged his unsuccessful legal arguments and told the crowd that he hoped then-Vice President Mike Pence would refuse to certify the election results when he appeared before the lawmakers at the Capitol.

“I hope Mike does the right thing. I hope so. I hope so,” Trump said.

“Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we will win the election…He has the absolute right to do this. We are supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution and protect our Constitution.

Trump then blamed the “fake media” and “radical left Democrats” for stealing the election.

“All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical left Democrats, as they are doing. And stolen by the fake media. This is what they did and what they are doing. We will never give up, we will never give in. This doesn’t happen. We concede nothing when there is theft.

That day, at the end of his speech, he told the crowd it was time to march down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol with a rambling directive to get involved.

“I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we’re going to the Capitol, and we’re going to try to give…the Democrats are desperate – they never vote for anything. Not even a voice. But we will try to give our help to our Republicans, the weakest, because the strongest do not need our help. We will try to give them the kind of pride and boldness they need to take back our country.

“Then let’s go down Pennsylvania Avenue.”

During the congressional hearings on the events of January 6, 2021, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson shared how Trump was dismissive when told that some members of his crowd at the Ellipse were armed.

“I was near a conversation where I heard the president say something like, ‘I don’t care if they have guns,’” ​​Hutchinson said. “They are not here to hurt me. …Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here.

She also described Trump’s anger after officials told him he could not accompany his supporters to the U.S. Capitol due to security concerns.

Trump instead returned to the White House. And as the violence at the Capitol unfolded, he sat at a table in a White House dining room and watched the scene unfold on Fox News, according to congressional testimony.

Pat Cipollone, one of Trump’s top White House lawyers, told congressional investigators that several aides — including the president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump — advised the president to say something to stop the violence.