Vice President Kamala Harris fulfilled her constitutional duty of certifying the electoral votes from the 2024 presidential election, a unique and humiliating finale to her truncated White House bid.
Taking her place at the center of the House floor next to Republican Speaker Mike Johnson during a joint session of Congress featuring both the Senate and the House of Representatives, Harris was forced to listen state-by-state to the results from the 2024 election.
The moment had to have been humiliating for Harris, who repeatedly called the president-elect a threat to democracy, a fascist, ‘petty tyrant’ and aspiring dictator.
Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, a current senator from Ohio, sat in the front row looking on without expression, clapping mildly – at times unenthusiastically – as the states he and Donald Trump won were read aloud.
Methodically, after the votes from each of the states and U.S. territories were counted and confirmed, Harris proclaimed Trump and Vance victorious.
‘Donald J. Trump of the state of Florida has received 312 votes,’ Harris said.
Her pronouncement that Trump is to be the 47th president to a room full primarily of Republicans was met with load roars of approval and a standing ovation – a scene unimaginable four years prior after many GOP lawmakers in the room denounced the president-elect.
‘Kamala Harris of the state of California received 226 votes,’ she continued, this time Democrats standing and cheering her on.
On a quiet snowy day four years after the ransacking of the Capitol by a crowd of crazed activists on January 6, 2021, Trump, after spending some time in the political wilderness, was again was named a presidential contest winner.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson preside over a joint session of Congress to certify the results of the 2024 Presidential election, inside the House Chamber at the US Capitol on January 6, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
Members of the House and Senate convened for a joint session to confirm Trump’s victory
Exactly four years after Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol, seeking to overturn his election loss, Harris and lawmakers meet today to certify his 2024 Presidential win, cementing the Republican’s comeback from political ignominy
The joint session featured many colorful moments as lawmakers reconvened for the second day of the 119th Congress.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 84, hobbled into the chamber using a walker after suffering a broken hip after falling down some marble stairs on a trip to Europe just before Christmas.
Pelosi had managed to make it back from across the pond last week to vote in the contentious House speaker vote. She had undergone hip replacement surgery while abroad, and the walker, with customary tennis balls, was a newly unveiled accessory.
Former Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, who was also injured during a fall last month, was seen wearing a new face mask in the Capitol.
A longtime rival of Trump’s, McConnell appears to have skipped the joint session.
Harris’ presiding over the joint session adds her to a unique club of VPs who have had to embarrassingly exclaim the victory for the man they ran against.
According to the Constitution, the vice president, as the leader of the Senate, is entrusted with the process of declaring the result of a White House election.
Harris now follows in the footsteps of Al Gore, vice president to Bill Clinton, who had to certify his defeat to Republican George W. Bush in 2001 after weeks of legal wrangling about hanging chads and small margins in Florida.
Before him, Richard Nixon (then vice president to Dwight D. Eisenhower) had to sign off on the results of his loss to John F. Kennedy after the 1960 election.
The moment for Harris, though surely bittersweet, must have been a lot more boring than her experience during the last electoral certification, during which she was a Senator from California.
Harris shakes hands with Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett while walking into the House chamber on Monday afternoon
President-elect Donald Trump is pictured at an election night watch party, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Florida
Four years ago, as then-VP Mike Pence and Congress readied to certify President Joe Biden’s electoral victory over Trump, the infamous January 6 riot broke out.
As thousands stormed the Capitol grounds, some fought with law enforcement while others broke windows to enter the House floor and halt Biden’s election certification.
The plan worked, for a time, but Pence and Congress returned after the riotous mob drove the politicians out.
At around 3:30 am on January 7, Biden’s victory was confirmed.
This time around the certification was much more mundane.
Earlier in the day Harris confirmed that she would indeed certify the election results that were not in her favor.
‘The peaceful transfer of power is one of the most fundamental principles of American democracy,’ Harris said in a video posted to her X account.
‘As much as any other principle, it is what distinguishes our system of government from monarchy and tyranny,’ she said.
The VP also alluded to the January 6th attack four years later.
‘As we have seen, our democracy can be fragile,’ she noted.
‘And it is up to then each one of us to stand up for our most cherished principles and to make sure in American our government always remains of the people, by the people and for the people.’
