One trucker convoy that left California on Friday for Washington D.C. to protest pandemic restrictions has halted their plan to go to the nation’s capital one day after setting out on the cross country trip, The New York Times reports.
The Freedom Convoy USA 2022 left Los Angeles on Friday and was scheduled to make stops in other major cities including Denver, Salt Lake City and Kansas City before arriving in Washington on March 1 in time for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. But by the time the group arrived in Las Vegas Saturday morning only five trucks remained in the caravan prompting organizers to abandon the campaign and tell members to merge with other, larger anti-mandate groups heading toward the capital.
“There are two other convoys that have massive turnouts, and are in progress to the D.C. area as we speak,” the organizers wrote on Facebook, referring to the People’s Convoy and the Texas Convoy.
“We are making the decision to send any truckers planned to meet at our routes to start heading to D.C. for the event on the National Mall, or to join the convoys named above as they are about to merge into one,” the organizers wrote, according to The Times.
Some supporters were left hurt by the organizers’ decision to disband the caravan.
“I spent days trying to co-ordinate a rally in support of our truckers,” one Facebook user wrote in the comments. “I have three tiny kids and work a full-time job and stretched myself thin then made myself look so stupid. I’m pretty hurt by all this.”
The Freedom Convoy USA 2022 was one of several convoys modelled after Canada’s anti-mandate trucker protest. Truckers are heading to D.C. to demand, among other things, an end to the pandemic restrictions and mandates requiring masks and vaccinations.
Last week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved the deployment of 700 unarmed National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., ahead of the truck convoy.
