Many have worried about our safety, so I give this quick update. I will give a fuller report on the day tomorrow.
From 5:30 this morning until about 12:30, everything was calm, peaceful and downright cheery. The only thing that troubled me was that I kept seeing people wearing MAGA gear who were scowling – and thought to myself that these are not MAGA people. Sure enough, a lot of reports this afternoon were that Antifa had opened a new page in their book and embedded themselves among the crowd under cover.
I was at the Washington Monument on the Ellipse for most of the morning. By 11:30, it became clear that Mike Pence and most Republicans were going to confirm the steal. Some people in the crowd started shouting that we should storm the Capitol. No one seemed much enthused early on. Having walked about four miles, I was hurting and decided to get back to Annapolis. Just after I left was when the chaos broke out. Yet some of our people who were there said that most of the crowd was still cheery, if agitated. It was good I got out when I did, because some of our people were trapped in D.C. after the Mayor, Muriel Bowser, announced her curfew. I ended up driving back to help evacuate. Maybe eight or 10 of our group are staying put in D.C. hotels. Most of the rest are coming out for an after-dinner tonight to go through what they saw and heard.
Everyone is safe as of this writing, and all who needed to be evacuated have made it out of D.C.
I’ll share more tomorrow.