Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the certification of Trump’s Electoral College victory—and her own defeat—in Congress on Monday.Mother Jones illustration; Matt Rourke/AP, Mihoko Owada/STAR MAX/IPx/AP
Four years to the day that Donald Trump incited a violent attack on the US Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the 2020 election results, Congress certified his Electoral College victory as the 47th president of the United States.
As required of her role presiding over the Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris oversaw the ceremony, which marked her own defeat. In doing so—and in a process rife with irony—Harris was addressed as “Madam President,” referring to her role as president of the Senate, as the electoral results of each state were announced. The final tally: 312 to 226.
In a video posted to X Monday morning, Harris drew an implicit contrast to Trump’s approach to his election loss: “This duty is a sacred obligation—one I will uphold guided by love of country, loyalty to our Constitution, and unwavering faith in the American people.”
Some Republicans appeared less high-minded, instead peddling revisionist history and suggestions that the label of “insurrection” to describe Jan. 6 was overblown. In an especially absurd example, Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) falsely claimed in a post on X that the insurrectionists were made up of “thousands of peaceful grandmothers” who took “a self-guided, albeit unauthorized, tour of the U.S. Capitol building.” Adding to the misinformation was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.,) who told a reporter: “January 6th was not an insurrection. I’m completely sick and tired and fed up of the Democrats’ narrative, the media narrative, and it’s a total lie.”
As my colleague Mark Follman has chronicled, January 6, 2021, was indeed a heavily armed insurrection that saw 140 police officers injured, the deaths of four participants, and five police officers who had been at the Capitol. More than 1,200 people have been charged for their actions on Jan. 6, according to the Department of Justice—and Trump has promised to pardon them.
Democrats on Monday went to great lengths to emphasize that they were doing what Trump and his allies did not: accepting an election loss and facilitating a peaceful transition of power. They also reminded Americans of what actually happened on Jan. 6.
“Today, Congress will do its constitutional duty once again to certify the election results—a great contrast from Republicans who sought to deny the election 4 years ago,” Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) wrote on X Monday morning.
Several Democratic members of Congress also shared photos of their destroyed offices and damage sustained to the Capitol four years ago. “The horrific videos and images from the January 6th insurrection against our Capitol reaffirm as much as ever: The power of the people must always matter more than the people in power,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) wrote, alongside photos of broken glass and overturned furniture.
4 years ago.
The horrific videos and images from the January 6th insurrection against our Capitol reaffirm as much as ever: The power of the people must always matter more than the people in power. pic.twitter.com/awY7Md49NI
— Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) January 6, 2025
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) shared a photo of what he said was Capitol Police barricading his office doors and windows “to protect my staff and I from the violent mob that was just outside my window.”
In an op-ed published in the Washington Post on Sunday, President Biden warned of the importance of preserving the facts of the “assault” of January 6 for the history books: “An unrelenting effort has been underway to rewrite—even erase—the history of that day. To tell us we didn’t see what we all saw with our own eyes. To dismiss concerns about it as some kind of partisan obsession. To explain it away as a protest that just got out of hand. This is not what happened…We cannot allow the truth to be lost.”
Biden also called for “remembering Jan. 6, 2021, every year. To remember it as a day when our democracy was put to the test and prevailed. To remember that democracy—even in America—is never guaranteed.”
Of course, such warnings to remember what happened on January 6 were absent from Trump’s communications. Early Monday morning, he wrote on Truth Social: “CONGRESS CERTIFIES OUR GREAT ELECTION VICTORY TODAY — A BIG MOMENT IN HISTORY. MAGA!”
