How Kamala Harris is approaching certifying her election loss to Trump
As Kamala Harris presides over a joint session of Congress to certify her loss to Donald Trump, she will be focused on ensuring a peaceful transfer of power.
On Monday, as Vice President Kamala Harris presides over a joint session of Congress to certify her own election loss to Donald Trump, she will be focused on ensuring a peaceful transfer of power and avoiding the deadly chaos that enveloped the Capitol exactly four years ago, according to interviews with five people familiar with her thinking, including a White House official, two current Harris aides and two former Harris aides.
In a recorded video message about her role Monday, obtained first by NBC News, Harris says it is a “sacred obligation” that she will uphold, “guided by love of country, loyalty to our Constitution and my unwavering faith in the American people.”
On Jan. 6, 2021, Trump held a rally in Washington, D.C., where he baselessly claimed that the election was stolen from him and urged his vice president, Mike Pence, not to certify the election results. Many of his supporters then marched to the Capitol and stormed the building.
On that day, Harris, then the vice president-elect, was inside Democratic National Committee headquarters when a pipe bomb was discovered near a park bench outside the building. Capitol Police and the Secret Service evacuated her minutes later.
Harris has accepted the 2024 results, and there are no large-scale Democratic protests planned in what is expected to be unseasonably cold weather with significant snowfall.
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