One thousand truckers begin drive from California to DC TODAY in protest of COVID National Emergency

As many as 1,000 truckers are expected to gather in California on Wednesday to embark on an 11-day trek to Washington DC in an effort to protest what they claim are unconstitutional COVID-19 mandates.

The People’s Convoy – inspired by Canada’s Freedom Convoy which included weeks of demonstrations and blockades that shut down border crossings into the US – argues the ‘government has forgotten its place’ and seeks to advocate for all Americans. 

It has called on the federal government to end the National Emergency enacted at the start of the pandemic, arguing that the threat posed by the virus has now receded. President Joe Biden extended the emergency – which was set to expire next week – last Friday. The president did so after arguing that ‘the COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause significant risk to the public health and safety of the nation’.

People’s Convoy organizers claim they do not intend to disrupt roads or bridges, like the Canadian protest did. However, some semi-truck drivers are already calling for widespread blockades, including Bob Bolus who on Monday vowed the Beltway and other roads in and out of DC will be shut down.

Biden, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Pentagon have been accused of overreacting to the convoy after it emerged 500 DC cops had been put on standby for violence, with 700 members of the National Guard also at the ready.  

Bolus, who is leading a DC-bound convoy of about 25 semis from Pennsylvania, began his route Wednesday morning after suffering a more than two hour delay caused by a flat tire. He has not specified how they plan to block the Beltway but told WJLA: ‘We’re not going to cause a traffic problem any more than they live with every single day.’ 

Biden elected to extend the National Emergency despite calls from 70 House Republicans and Department of Health and Human Service Secretary Xavier Becerra urging him to end the declaration. The leaders cited access to vaccines, treatments and mental health impacts as reasons to let the order expire, as well as the fact that other nations have started transitioning out of pandemic restrictions. 

‘[The] fact is we have a government that tries to push us around,’ trucker Mike Landis told the Los Angeles Times Tuesday when asked about the People’s Convoy. ‘At this moment, we are living without our Constitution. Our Constitution means nothing right now.’ 

Landis, who supports COVID safety measures – but not government COVID mandates – argued the protest is not about truckers but instead it is ‘for the people — hence the name the people’s convoy.’ 

Organizers, in a statement, echoed Landis’ sentiment saying: ‘This convoy is about freedom and unity: The truckers are riding unified across party and state lines and with people of all colors and creeds — Christians, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Mormons, Agnostics, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, Republican, Democrats.’ 

The cavalcade will set off from the Adelanto Stadium at midday PST Wednesday. It will then head to Kingman and Lupton in Arizona, Glenrio in Texas, Elk City and Vinita in Oklahoma and Sullivan in Missouri.

Truckers will then head to Indianapolis, Cambridge in Ohio and Hagerstown in Maryland, before their anticipated arrival at the DC Beltway on March 5.  

GOP Rep. Ralph Norman, of South Carolina, told DailyMail.com that he supports the People’s Convoy in their protest of COVID mandates: ‘Americans have every right to be angry at this government, and I believe these individuals speak for more than just themselves. I support their right to lawfully protest, without disrupting commerce, essential services, or the lives of others.’ 

‘President Biden refuses to listen to the millions of Americans who are fed up with rising inflation and tyrannical COVID mandates. I look forward to welcoming the thousands of patriots to DC next week as they peacefully remind Washington what a complete failure this Administration has been,’ echoed Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas).

A group of GOP lawmakers also issued a letter hitting back at Biden and Trudeau, alleging their COVID mandates were ‘draconian’ and ‘have devastated each nation’s economy’. 

‘Draconian COVID-19 mandates such as those implemented by the authoritarian Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau and his appeaser, President of the United States Joseph R. Biden, have devastated each nation’s economy thereby inhibiting the free flow of commerce throughout North America,’ said Rep. Donalds penned. 

‘Once hailed as heroes, American and Canadian truckers are being lambasted as the enemy in their fight for freedom and medical autonomy. Truckers are the backbone of our nations, and they deserve our unyielding support. I am proud to lead this effort in supporting the Freedom Convoy and demanding answers from both the American and Canadian Governments about the global economic impacts of the trucker protests resulting from the countries’ overreaching vaccine mandates.’

‘This Administration’s decision to mandate all non-U.S. Citizen travelers be fully vaccinated is unnecessary and is further burdening an already depleted workforce,’ said Rep. Michelle Fischbach. ‘I am proud to join my colleagues urging President Biden and President Trudeau to work with Canada to lift the mandates on travel at the border.’

‘President Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have adversely affected the economies of both the United States and Canada through their authoritarian COVID-19 mandates,’ echoed Congressman Jeff Van Drew. 

‘Truckers are imperative in maintaining the stability of our nation’s economy and need our support while their rights and livelihoods are being threatened. Trade between the United States and Canada is the largest bilateral partnership in the world, so it is extremely important that we do not hinder our trade relationship through these unneeded mandates. I am proud to join Rep. Donalds in demanding answers from President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau on how these COVID-19 mandates are impacting both nations.’

‘Arbitrary COVID-19 mandates and guidelines put in place by our government have absolutely devastated our economy, destroyed small businesses across America, and severely disrupted our supply chain,’ said Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis. ‘I’m proud to stand with my colleagues in support of freedom and I urge both the Canadian and U.S. Governments to lift these burdensome mandates so we can work to restore an efficient supply chain as soon as possible.’   

The lawmakers statements come as truckers make their way to the capital city. Bolus previously said his convoy will make stops in Harrisburg and Baltimore before arriving in the DC region. His group plans to block DC roadways but has not expressed how they will do so.

‘We’re not going to camp there. Let me put it that way,’ Bolus told the TV station. ‘We’re not camping on the Beltway. We’re gonna have our voices heard and let them understand this is only the tip of the iceberg.’

He also said he is keeping his convoy out of the District, arguing he ‘believes Maryland and Virginia follow due process more than the nation’s capital.’

Bolus also noted that his convoy has been in contact with the California convoy: ‘We have had dialogue. We’ve had conference calls and we’re all on the same page. We’re all for one thing: freedom and rights.’

‘This is America/ You took our freedom, you took our rights, you gave it to the illegals. You took our freedom and our rights and turned them around and you gave it to the BLMs (Black Lives Matter protesters) to burn buildings and not get prosecuted. The laws don’t apply to them.’ 

The People’s Convoy, traveling from California, is expected to arrive in DC in early March which some experts allege could disrupt traffic around the Capitol ahead of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. Others have expressed concern that the convoy could result in a recreation of the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Capitol Hill staffers were sent a memo warning the ‘potential impacts of truck convoys may be coincide with the State of the Union Address to Congress and extend through mid-March. Senate staff in D.C. and state offices should anticipate that these convoys may cause higher than normal traffic volumes and possible transportation disruptions on and around roadways in the Washington, DC area, and along various roadways throughout the country.’

The Pentagon is expected to approve the deployment of 700 to 800 unarmed National Guard troops to the nation’s capital, a U.S. official said Tuesday, in face of trucker convoys.

The Metropolitan Police Department of DC has added 500 officers to its deployment each day in early March and the fencing that surrounded the Capitol complex for much of 2021 will be reinstalled next week. 

Meanwhile, separate truck convoys have been planned in the US through online forums – with names like the American Truckers Freedom Fund – all with different starting points, departure dates and routes. 

The protesters want an immediate end to the two-year-old state of emergency, which will now be extended beyond March 1 due to what Biden said was an ‘ongoing risk to public health posed by the coronavirus’. The People’s Convoy also seeks an end to vaccine and mask requirements. Nineteen states currently have vaccine mandates in effect.

‘It is now time to reopen the country,’ the protest organizers said in a statement, adding that regardless of where the trucks stop ‘we’re not going anywhere’ until demands are met. 

Fellow Americans are issuing support for the truckers through a 3,000 person demonstration planned near the Washington Monument on the morning of March 1, the day of Biden’s State of the Union address. According to National Park Service applications obtained by Congressional Correspondent Scott MacFarlane, the protest is ‘against mandates’ and in ‘support of convoys in Canada and the lifting of mandates in DC/USA’. The protest permit application is still under consideration.

The American convoys follow the recent Canadian truckers’ protest which besieged the streets of the capital, Ottawa, for weeks to protest government pandemic restrictions. The multiple blockades were broken up by police last week, with nearly 200 arrests. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked rarely used emergency powers to end the protests, and Canadian police restored a sense of normalcy in Ottawa over the weekend.

‘We plan to stay a while and hope they don’t escalate it the way Trudeau did with his disgusting government overreach,’ Brian Brase, a truck driver who is one of the People’s Convoy organizers, told Reuters Wednesday from Adelanto, California. 

The People’s Convoy is slated to depart Adelanto, California – located about 85 miles outside of Los Angeles – Wednesday at noon local time following a 10am public send-off rally. 

A small number of truckers began gathering at the Adelanto Stadium on Tuesday with decorated rigs sporting stars and stripes and anti-Biden messages including ‘Let’s Go Brandon.’

The route, which organizers say could change, is expected to stop in Kingman, Arizona before traveling through New Mexico and Texas and arriving in Oklahoma on Saturday.

Drivers will then continue through Missouri, Indiana and Ohio before heading to Hagerstown, Maryland and ultimately arriving in DC on March 5 – after Biden’s annual address to Congress. 

The District of Columbia government – including Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser – and the U.S. Capitol Police are requesting the National Guard assistance. 

The troops would be used largely to help control traffic and are expected to come from the district’s National Guard and three states, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss aid not yet formally approved.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the D.C. government and Capitol Police had requested National Guard personnel ‘to provide support at traffic control points in and around the District’ and stand ready in case of ‘possible disruptions at key traffic arteries.’ He too said no formal decision on the requests had been made. 

Several people argued the city and the department of defense were overreacting.  

Gayle Trotter wrote: ‘I suspect DC Mayor Muriel Bowser isn’t going to authorize a ‘Freedom Convey[sic]’ plaza anytime soon?’ referencing Bowser’s designation of an area as Black Lives Matter Plaza in 2020. 

Sal LaBarbera added: ‘Basically this will be the first peaceful protest and we’re going to wage war against it.’

‘What a waste of taxpayer money! Is anyone asking if the treatment will be better off this time around than the last clown show?’ wrote Cyndi.  

Earlier Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ‘closely monitoring’ trucker convoys planning protests against pandemic restrictions in Washington, DC, ahead of President Biden’s State of the Union address next week. 

‘We are monitoring the situation closely but deferred to the USCP, which is in charge of security,’ senior staffer and spokesman for Pelosi, Drew Hammill, told Fox. 

Some convoys are scheduled to arrive in time for Biden’s State of the Union address next Tuesday, March 1, though others may arrive afterward.

As a preemptive measure, Capitol Police has scheduled officers on 12-hour shifts, with plans to reinstall the fencing that surrounded the Capitol complex last year. Democrats, mainly Pelosi, insisted the fencing was a needed precaution following the January 6 riot.

The Pentagon is reportedly considering sending the National Guard to the capital. 

The protests could become the biggest security threat in DC since the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.   

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is expected to approve the deployment of 700 to 800 unarmed National Guard troops to the nation’s capital, a US official said Tuesday 

The District of Columbia government and the US Capitol Police are also requesting the National Guard assistance. 

The troops would be used largely to help control traffic and are expected to come from the district’s National Guard and three states, said the official.

‘The United States Capitol Police and the United States Secret Service have been closely working together to plan for the upcoming State of the Union,’ the US Capitol Police said Friday. ‘The temporary inner-perimeter fence is part of those ongoing discussions and remains an option, however at this time no decision has been made.’

If approved, the The DC National Guard can supply up to 400 troops. 

Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert Contee said Friday that his department was closely monitoring the shifting information and would be devoting additional police manhours in a rolling state of alert over the next few weeks.  

‘There will be disruptions to traffic, that kind of thing,’ Contee said. ‘I think we need to be very candid with the public about what some of the expectations, based upon what we’ve seen in Ottawa, that we might see here in the District.’

Contee called the Ottawa standoff, ‘an incredible situation – one that we have not seen here in the District of Columbia.’

Contee and Mayor Muriel Bowser predicted unrest several days before the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol Building.  

They warned residents to stay indoors and called for additional resources, but the Capitol Police and National Guard were still caught unprepared when crowds of Trump supporters overran the building, resulting in several deaths and numerous injuries.

Lingering memories of that debacle have fueled a heightened sense of anxiety and speculation over the coming convoys. But Bowser said she wasn’t yet warning residents to avoid the Capitol area or the National Mall.

‘We’re not at a point to give specific instructions to residents just yet. We will,’ Bowser said. 

It remains to be seen if any of the U.S. convoys would seek to actively shut down Washington’s streets, the way their Canadian counterparts did in Ottawa. Some convoy organizers have spoken of plans to briefly roll through the city, then focus on shutting down the Beltway, which encircles the capital. 

A statement from the People’s Convoy specifically says the trucks ‘will NOT be going into DC proper.’ That convoy is planning to embark Wednesday from southern California and arrive in DC around March 5.

The US convoys seek an immediate lifting of what they say are heavy-handed government pandemic restrictions like mask mandates and vaccine requirements. The American Truckers Freedom Fund website says the group is protesting ‘the unscientific, unconstitutional overreach of the federal government.’  

People’s Convoy organizer Mike Landis, in a video testimonial on the group’s website, said the current COVID vaccine ‘is not proven yet’ but supported individual choice on whether to take it or not. 

Landis said the convoy was open to all vehicles and said the primary goal was to pressure Biden to lift the national state of emergency.

‘We want this government to bring back the Constitution,’ Landis said. ‘We do not want to be under a dictatorship communism-style regime, like where we are right now.’

Press secretary John Kirby said Tuesday that The Pentagon has been asked to help manage the protests by deploying the National Guard. 

‘The Department is analyzing a request for assistance from the US Capitol Police and the DC Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency,’ Kirby said in a statement. 

‘Those agencies have asked for National Guard personnel to provide support at traffic control points in and around the District to help the USCP [U.S. Capitol Police] and D.C. government address potential challenges stemming from possible disruptions at key traffic arteries.’ 

Although it’s not clear how many people will participate in the protests, it could number in the thousands, Fox News reported. 

Those leading the movement have requested a National Park Service permit that could accommodate up to 3,000 truckers in DC, according to the report.  

The fencing erection around the Capitol comes as anxiety over security on Capitol Hill continues following the January 6, 2021 attack that saw a handful killed and dozens to hundreds injured in the midst of Congress certifying the 2020 presidential election results.  

The fencing remained in place for most of 2021, giving rise to Republican criticism and claims that Democrats were trying to create a barrier between government and the people. 

The United States Capitol Police said it is working with several law enforcement agencies in the area as well as the D.C. National Guard to secure the complex before Biden’s first State of the Union on March 1.  

Some participants have already laid out the ruthless approaches they’ll take to making their voices heard in Washington. 

Bob Bolus, who’s leading a fleet of transports from Pennsylvania to Washington on Wednesday, plans to help shut down the Capital Beltway on Friday in protest of vaccine mandates, pandemic-related restrictions and more. 

The 64-mile road – whose formal name is the I-495 – encircles the capital, and is its most vital ground transportation link. One lane will be left open for emergency vehicles, but Bolus has said ‘tough luck’ to commuters. 

‘The Beltway will be shut down,’ Bolus told Fox News. ‘I’ll give you an analogy of that of a giant boa constrictor that basically squeezes you, chokes you, and then swallows you. And that’s what we’re going to do to D.C.’ 

‘We will not compromise anybody’s safety or health. As far as if they [people] can’t get to work, geez, that’s too bad.’

Bolus said in a flyer that he’s leading a group of truckers from Harrisburg to Washington to take a stand against President Joe Biden’s ‘tyrannical machine’s attempt to remove our inalienable rights.’  

Both the Canadian and American convoys has drummed up plenty of support among truckers and Conservatives, including Senator Rand Paul, who previously said he was ‘all for’ such a protest.

‘I’m all for it,’ Paul told the Daily Signal earlier this month. 

‘Civil disobedience is a time-honored tradition in our country, from slavery to civil rights, you name it. Peaceful protest, clog things up, make people think about the mandates.’

However, Canada has been criticized for the way it policed the largely peaceful protests. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been blasted as an authoritarian for his attempts to stomp out the protests and stop them from being funded.

Ottawa’s protests also led to the resignation last week of the city’s police chief Peter Sloly, who failed to restore order to Canada’s capital after thousands of truckers began protesting there in late January.