Harris is to confirm Trump’s victory in the US election, four years after the riot in the Capitol

US Vice President Kamala Harris will preside on Monday at the official confirmation in Congress of the results of the presidential election in November – a contest that she lost to Donald Trump.

The date also marks the fourth anniversary of riots at the US Capitol, when Trump supporters tried to derail the confirmation of Democratic President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. This is usually a simple formality.

Security has been heightened in Washington, and Biden has vowed that the violence on January 6, 2021, which resulted in several deaths, will not be repeated.

As lawmakers meet in Washington, the forecast for heavy snow in the US capital could prove devastating.

House Speaker Mike Johnson vowed to hold the certification at 1:00 p.m. EST (6:00 p.m. GMT) despite the weather, telling Fox News, “Whether we’re going to be in a blizzard, we’re going to be in this chamber, to make sure it’s done.”

As the current vice president, Harris is required by the US Constitution to officially preside over the certification of the results after Trump beat her in the Nov. 5 national vote.

Trump won all seven of the nation’s states, helping him win the Electoral College, the mechanism that decides who takes the presidency. Harris’ job on Monday will be to read the number of Electoral College votes each candidate received.

Trump’s second term will begin after his inauguration on January 20. For the first time since 2017, the president’s party will also have a majority in both houses of Congress, albeit a slim one.

Trump’s victory was a stunning political comeback after losing the 2020 election and being impeached in 2024 – a first for a current or former US president.

Amid a dramatic recent presidential campaign, Trump also survived a bullet that grazed his ear when a gunman opened fire at one of his rallies in Pennsylvania.

While away from the White House, he has faced multiple lawsuits against him — including his efforts to overturn the 2020 results, which he continues to dispute.

After his defeat that year, Trump and his allies made baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud — claiming the election was stolen from them.

In his speech in Washington, D.C., on the day of his certification, Jan. 6, 2021, Trump told the crowd to “fight like hell” but also asked them to “peacefully” make their voices heard.

He also tried to get his vice president, Mike Pence, to reject the election results, a call that Pence rejected.

Rioters continued to break down barricades and loot the Capitol building before Trump eventually intervened, ordering them to go home. Several people died as a result of the violence.

Trump’s promises after returning to office include pardoning people convicted of crimes related to the attack. He says many of them are “wrongfully incarcerated”, although he admitted that “some of them are probably out of control”.

Conversely, Biden urged Americans to never forget what happened.

“We must remember the wisdom of the adage that any nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it,” Biden wrote in the Washington Post over the weekend.

For Trump’s GOP, new Senate Majority Leader John Thune signaled a desire to move on, telling the BBC’s US partner CBS News: “You can’t look in the rear-view mirror.”