Trump win made official as Harris presides over election certification four years after Jan 6 riot

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Exactly four years after a mob of Donald Trump’s supporters perpetrated the worst attack on the U.S. Capitol since Major General Robert Ross ordered British soldiers to set it ablaze more than two centuries before, Vice President Kamala Harris presided over a joint session of Congress to give Trump the peaceful transfer of power she was denied after the 2020 election. Unlike four years ago, when then-vice president Mike Pence read out the results and asked if senators or representatives had any objections to each state’s electoral vote totals, this year’s joint session employed a new procedure devised by lawmakers in the wake of Trump’s effort to overturn the election results four years ago. In a pre-recorded video message, she had said she would “perform her constitutional duty as Vice President of the United States to certify the results of the 2024 election” and called her role “a sacred obligation—one I will uphold guided by love of country, loyalty to our Constitution, and my unwavering faith in the American people,” “The peaceful transfer of power is one of the most fundamental principles of American democracy. Pence, Harris’s predecessor, posted a message to X calling the “peaceful transfer of power” a “hallmark of our democracy” and praising representatives and senators for crtifying the election “without controversy or objection.” “I welcome the return of order and civility to these historic proceedings and offer my most sincere congratulations and prayers to President Donald J. Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance on their election to lead this great Nation,” he said.