Page:Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.pdf/564

 always an option," Ali Alexander said. "These degenerates in the deep state are going to give us what we want, or we are going to shut this country down." When Alex Jones took to the stage, he screamed at the crowd: "It's 1776!"

Another speaker that evening was Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.). "Tomorrow, tomorrow, trust me, the American people that are standing on the soil that we are standing on tonight, and they're going to be standing on this soil tomorrow, this is soil that we have fought over, fought for, and we will fight for in the future," Flynn also told the crowd. Flynn addressed Members of Congress, saying "those of you who are feeling weak tonight, those of you that don't have the moral fiber in your body, get some tonight because tomorrow, we the people are going to be here, and we want you to know that we will not stand for a lie. We will not stand for a lie."

On the evening of January 5th, the President edited the speech he would deliver the next day at the Ellipse. The President's speechwriting team had only started working on his remarks the day before. Despite concerns from the speechwriting team, unfounded claims coming from Giuliani and others made their way into the draft.

The initial draft circulated on January 5th emphasized that the crowd would march to the U.S. Capitol. Based on what they had heard from others in the White House, the speechwriting team expected President Trump to use his address to tell people to go to the Capitol.

That evening, President Trump convened an impromptu gathering in the Oval Office with members of his staff, primarily his press team and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, who was in charge of President Trump's personal Twitter account. Despite the bitter cold, the President ordered his staff to keep the door to the Rose Garden open so he could hear the music and cheering from his supporters at Freedom Plaza. The music playing at Freedom Plaza was so loud "you could feel it shaking in the Oval."

As President Trump listened, he was tweeting, at one point telling his supporters he could hear them from the Oval Office. His speechwriters incorporated those tweets into a second draft of the speech that was circulated later that evening. The following appeared in both tweet form and was adapted into the speech:

"All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened Radical Left Democrats. Our Country has had enough, they won't take it anymore! Together, we will STOP THE STEAL."