Breaking: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is resigning as prime minister and party leader. The announcement came after weeks of turmoil within his Liberal party, with many members publicly calling for his resignation amid declining poll numbers.
Today Congress will formally certify President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election on Jan. 6, marking the final ceremonial step to confirm Trump as the next commander-in-chief.
Vice President Kamala Harris, as president of the Senate, will officiate over the certification of her erstwhile rival’s victory during a joint session of Congress, and declare Trump the winner in the 2024 contest.
It’s expected to be largely a quiet, formal process this year. Harris has said she intends to treat her role as ceremonial. Democrats in Congress have already made clear that they accept Trump’s win.
But for members of both parties, the day can’t help but recall the events that unfolded four years prior.
During the certification of the 2020 election results on Jan. 6, 2021, pro-Trump protestors entered the Capitol, placing the certification process on hold and putting an end to a Republican effort to object to certain electoral slates.
Following the Capitol breach, Republican leaders like Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) quickly distanced themselves from Trump, joining Democrats in claiming he was responsible for the incident.
The House quickly pushed through a second impeachment resolution against Trump, though it failed in the Senate. Pundits believed Trump’s political future was at an end.
For both sides of the aisle, the certification of Trump’s re-election four years later is likely a reminder of the magnitude of the political comeback the president-elect has achieved. Nevertheless, it’s expected to be a relatively quiet day in Washington this year, in spite of the wire-link fences that surround the Capitol.
Lawmakers from both chambers will gather in the House chamber, which is traditionally used for joint sessions, at 1:00 p.m. (ET) to begin the process of certification.
Under the process mandated by law, the official electoral slates will be transported into the House chamber in large mahogany boxes. Harris will then open the sealed electoral slates and hand them to the congressional tellers to be read aloud in alphabetical order.
As these votes are read off, lawmakers have the opportunity to raise any objections they see fit, so long as both a representative and a senator sign off on the objection. At that point, both chambers would meet for two hours to debate the objection before returning to a joint session.
These objections have been a relatively common fixture of American political life in the twenty-first century, with objections to certain electoral votes brought in 2001, 2005, 2017, and 2021. This year, however, Democrats have indicated that they expect no objections will be brought against certifying Trump’s win.
Though Jan. 6 was once seen as a relatively uneventful day in American political life, for the past four years the date has been a cultural flashpoint.
During a speech at the Ellipse four years ago, Trump, claiming that the 2020 election results were tainted by fraud, told his supporters to go to the Capitol to “peacefully and patriotically” protest the certification of the results.
Trump singled out then-Vice President Mike Pence in the speech, urging him to reject certain electoral slates from key battleground states
When the crowd arrived at the Capitol, chaos ensued as the crowd entered the Capitol. Most entered through the main entrances, though a minority entered through smashed windows.
Ultimately, the Capitol was cleared of protestors after Trump urged his supporters to leave. Though some damages had been done to the building and some offices, certification proceeded without further objections.
—Joseph Lord
ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) says he plans to be able to pass most of Trump’s agenda through “one big, beautiful bill” by Memorial Day.
During an interview on Fox Business’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Johnson said that Republicans will try to put as many agenda items as possible—including things like border and immigration, energy, and tax policy—into a single package.
With the GOP in control of both the House and the Senate, the majority plans to use the reconciliation process to avoid the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate.
Trump signaled his support for this approach, and his main priorities for the package, in a post on X.
“Members of Congress are getting to work on one powerful Bill that will bring our Country back, and make it greater than ever before,” Trump said. “We must Secure our Border, Unleash American Energy, and Renew the Trump Tax Cuts.”
Trump also requested that the package include provisions ending taxes on tips, a key pillar of his 2024 campaign.
Johnson said that Republicans in the newly-seated 119th Congress are already at work on the details of the package.
“We’re 15 days out from the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump for his second term. And we want to make sure that we’re jump-starting the agenda now over the next two weeks, so that he’s prepared and ready on day one,” Johnson said.
Johnson said Republicans are working on “putting all the plays together and figuring out the sequence of how we’re going to run those plays.”
His hope is that the package can receive a vote by the first week of April, adding “maybe as soon as April 3, and then move it over to the Senate.”
“That would put that bill on the president’s desk for signature by the end of April. That would be fantastic,” Johnson said. “And, in a worst-case scenario, Memorial Day.”
Despite Johnson’s confidence, passing such a massive package by April or May might be easier said than done in the House, where he recently held onto the gavel by the narrowest possible margins.
With the ideologically-divided Republican conference in control of only 219 seats—a single seat above the bare majority threshold—any package will need to satisfy both moderates like Rep. Matt Lawler (R-N.Y.) and conservatives like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), with almost no room to spare any defections.
—Joseph Lord
BOOKMARKS
John Eastman, a Trump attorney who faced continual litigation for the advice he offered Trump following the 2020 election, argues in a new documentary that his experience was part of a larger weaponization of law against lawyers who advised Trump. The documentary, “The Eastman Dilemma: Lawfare or Justice,” premieres on Jan. 4 at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, The Epoch Times’ Emel Akan reported.
President Joe Biden on Jan. 5 signed a law that would expand Social Security benefits for millions of Americans, The Epoch Times’ Joseph Lord reported. Specifically, around 3 million public service officials employed by state and local governments will see a slight boost to their benefits.
Joel Salatin, a self-described “Christian Libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer,” is regarded by many as the nation’s foremost authority on regenerative farming. The Epoch Times’ Jeff Louderback traveled to Salatin’s Polyface Farms in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley to speak with him about his hopes for agriculture under Trump and a variety of other topics.
China has dramatically increased its cyberattacks against the United States since Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. The Epoch Times’ Andrew Thornbrooke reported on 20 of the largest CCP cyberattacks since then.
