Trump certified winner of 2024 election without challenge
The decision, announced by Vice President Kamala Harris, marks a stark contrast to 2021 and the violence at the Capitol.
Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the certification of her defeat to Donald Trump on Monday, four years after he tried to stop the very process that will now return him to the White House.
Proceedings unfolded without violence or mayhem, in stark contrast to January 6 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.
Layers of tall black fencing flank the US Capitol complex in a stark reminder of what happened four years ago when a defeated Mr Trump sent his mob to “fight like hell” in what became the most gruesome attack on the seat of American democracy in 200 years. It is the tightest national security level possible.
Ms Harris’s task was ceremonial and her remarks perfunctory. Standing on the dais, she passed copies of each state’s election results to officials and she stood silently with her hands clasped in front of her while they were read out loud.
When the process was finished, Ms Harris announced Mr Trump’s victory.
She smiled tightly as Republicans gave the next president a standing ovation.
“The chair declares this joint session resolved,” Ms Harris said at the end. “Thank you.”
No violence, protests or even procedural objections in Congress this time.
Republicans who challenged the 2020 election results when Mr Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden have no qualms this year after he defeated Ms Harris.
And Democrats frustrated by Mr Trump’s 312-226 Electoral College victory nevertheless accepted the choice of the American voters.
Even the winter snow blanketing the grounds didn’t interfere with January 6, the day set by law to certify the vote.
Mr Trump said in a post online that Congress was certifying a “GREAT” election victory and called it “A BIG MOMENT IN HISTORY”.
The day’s return to a US tradition that launches the peaceful transfer of presidential power comes with an asterisk as Mr Trump prepares to take office in two weeks with a revived sense of authority.
Mr Biden, speaking at events at the White House on Sunday, said: “We’ve got to get back to the basic, normal transfer of power.”
What Trump did last time, Mr Biden said, “was a genuine threat to democracy. I’m hopeful we’re beyond that now”.
Still, American democracy has proven to be resilient, and Congress, the branch of government closest to the people, was coming together to affirm the choice of Americans.
With pomp and tradition, the day unfolded as it has countless times before, with the arrival of ceremonial mahogany boxes filled with the electoral certificates from the states — boxes that staff were frantically grabbing and protecting as Mr Trump’s mob stormed the building last time.
Senators walked across the Capitol — which four years ago had filled with roaming rioters, some defecating and menacingly calling out for leaders, others engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police — to the House to begin certifying the vote.
Ms Harris presided over the counting, as is the requirement for the vice president, and certified her own defeat — much the way Democrat Al Gore did in 2001 and Republican Richard Nixon in 1961.
