Harris will confirm Trump’s victory in the US election, four years after riots in the Capitol
On Monday, US Vice President Kamala Harris will preside over the official confirmation of the results of the November presidential election in Congress – a contest she lost to Donald Trump.
The date also marks the fourth anniversary of riots at the US Capitol, when Trump supporters tried to thwart the confirmation of Democratic President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Usually the occasion is a mere formality.
Heavy security measures are in place in Washington, and Biden has vowed that there will be no repeat of the violence on January 6, 2021 – which led to several deaths.
As lawmakers meet in Washington, heavy snow forecast for the US capital could prove devastating.
House Speaker Mike Johnson vowed to proceed with certification at 1:00 p.m. EST (6:00 p.m. GMT) despite the weather, telling Fox News: “Whether we’re in a blizzard or not, we’re going to be in that chamber to make sure that this is done.”
As the current vice president, Harris is required by the US Constitution to officially preside over the certification of the results, after Trump defeated her in the Nov. 5 national poll.
Trump won all seven of the nation’s swing states, helping him win the electoral college, the mechanism that decides who takes over the presidency. Harris’ job on Monday will be to read the number of electoral college votes each candidate won.
Trump’s second term will begin after his inauguration on January 20. For the first time since 2017, the president’s party will also enjoy majorities in both houses of Congress, albeit slim ones.
Trump’s victory marked a stunning political comeback after his election defeat in 2020 and a criminal conviction in 2024 – a first for a current or former US president.
Amid a dramatic recent presidential campaign, Trump also survived a bullet that grazed his ear when a gunman opened fire at one of his rallies in Pennsylvania.
While away from the White House, he has faced a series of legal cases against him — including his attempts to overturn the 2020 results, which he continues to contest.
After his defeat that year, Trump and his allies made unsubstantiated allegations of widespread voter fraud — claiming the election had been stolen from them.
In a speech in Washington DC on certification day, January 6, 2021, Trump told the crowd to “fight like hell” but also asked them to “calmly” cast their votes.
He also tried to pressure his own vice president, Mike Pence, to throw out the election result — a call that Pence refused.
Rioters continued to break through barricades and search the Capitol building before Trump finally intervened, telling them to go home. Several deaths were attributed to the violence.
Trump’s promises after returning to office include pardoning people convicted of crimes related to the attack. He says many of them were “wrongfully imprisoned”, although he admitted that “a few of them probably got out of hand”.
Conversely, Biden urged Americans to never forget what happened.
“We must remember the wisdom of the saying that any nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it,” Biden wrote in the Washington Post over the weekend.
For Trump’s Republican Party, new Senate Majority Leader John Thune signaled a desire to go further, telling the BBC’s US partner CBS News: “You can’t look in the rear-view mirror.”
