Lots of love, singing for President Trump on San Francisco flight ahead of 'Stop the Steal' rally
SAN FRANCISCO - There was a lot of love for President Trump on a recent flight from San Francisco to Washington.
Passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 487 chanted "USA" and sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" in support of Trump ahead of a "Stop the Steal" rally scheduled in D.C. on Wednesday.
Lisa Lamping was one of those passengers and she took video on Tuesday of the chanting on the flight.
Lamping told Storyful: "I told the girl sitting next to me we should get everyone to sing a song and we were nervous to do it but we could feel the energy and excitement building as we landed. So the two of us just started to sing."
The passengers can also be heard chanting Trump’s name at the end of the footage. It's unclear just how many people were singing songs; at one point in the video, the majority of people seemed to be watching their TV screens, but near the end, it sounded as if a majority of people were singing the national anthem and whooping and cheering.
And this wasn't the only impromptu Trump rally. On Tuesday, several videos were posted online showing pro-Trump supporters chanting and singing.
All the support was geared to cheer on Trump's baseless claims of election fraud ahead of a congressional vote to affirm Joe Biden’s election victory.
The president is expected to personally address his supporters during a Wednesday morning rally on the Ellipse, just south of the White House.
As Lamping was flying to D.C., several other like-minded protesters — many without masks — gathered in Freedom Plaza to decry the vote in the Electoral College.
"I’m just here to support the president," said David Wideman, a 45-year-old firefighter who traveled from Memphis, Tennessee.
Wideman acknowledged he was "confused" by a string of losses from the president’s legal team in their attempt to overturn the results of the election and didn’t know what options Trump had left.
"I not sure what he can do at this point, but I want to hear what he has to say," Wideman said.
Trump tweeted his support for the protesters: "Washington is being inundated with people who don’t want to see an election victory stolen by emboldened Radical Left Democrats. Our Country has had enough, they won’t take it anymore! We hear you (and love you) from the Oval Office. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
The protests coincide with Wednesday’s congressional vote expected to certify the Electoral College results, which Trump continues to dispute.
In a Tuesday evening tweet, Trump called on Democrats and fellow Republicans to look at the "thousands of people pouring into D.C." In another tweet, he warned that antifa, the umbrella term for leftist militant groups that Trump has said he wants to declare a terrorist organization, should stay out of Washington.
The rallies had local officials and law enforcement bracing for potential violent street clashes. Many businesses in downtown Washington boarded up their windows, fearful that the protest could devolve into the unrest seen in May and June when dozens of businesses were vandalized.
Election officials from both political parties, governors in key battleground states and Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, have said there was no widespread fraud in the election. Nearly all the legal challenges from Trump and his allies have been dismissed by judges, including two challenges rejected by the Supreme Court.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.