Congress certified Donald Trump's 2024 Electoral College victory in a quick, uneventful ceremony Monday—without a single objection from members of Congress or riots from supporters of the losing candidate.
It was a far cry from the scene on Capitol Hill four years ago, when Trump sought to carry out his plan to block Joe Biden's win and remain in power—actions for which he was indicted but will likely never face consequences.
On Jan. 6, 2021, 147 Congress Republicans objected to Biden's Electoral College win during the joint session over which then-Vice President Mike Pence was presiding. Their objections were based on lies that the 2020 election was rife with fraud—allegations Republicans have never provided evidence to support.
At the same time Republicans were objecting to the Electoral College results, a mob of Trump supporters was violently breaking into the U.S. Capitol to demand Pence not to accept Biden's victory, killing five people and injuring more than 140 law enforcement officers in the process.
One officer died on Jan. 7, 2021, a day after he was attacked while defending the Capitol. Four other officers who responded on Jan. 6 subsequently died by suicide.
Trump and Republican lawmakers' behavior was so abhorrent and dangerous that the Democratic-controlled Congress changed the law in 2022 to prevent similar situations from unfolding in the future. The law officially made the vice president's role in the Electoral College certification ceremonial and raised the threshold to object to a state's Electoral College vote.
This year, not a single Democratic lawmaker objected to Trump's win. And Vice President Kamala Harris presided with grace and poise over the joint session of Congress to certify her own defeat.
Pence praised Harris for her conduct.
“The peaceful transfer of power is the hallmark of our democracy and today, members of both parties in the House and Senate along with the vice president certified the election of our new president and vice president without controversy or objection,” Pence wrote on X, adding that it was “particularly admirable that Vice President Harris would preside over the certification of a presidential election that she lost.”
Meanwhile, other Republicans are trying to rewrite what happened at the Capitol four years ago.
Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia described the violent insurrection as a tourist visit. And Trump has said that he will pardon the hundreds of his supporters who either pleaded guilty or were convicted for their unlawful actions to try to keep Trump in power.
More than a dozen of the Republicans who objected to the Electoral College results in 2021 were giddy about the certification ceremony today. The only difference this year is that their candidate of choice won, so they didn’t have to lie about voter fraud.
Democratic lawmakers, however, are not going to let Republicans rewrite history.
“Four years ago, I was barricaded in an office in the Longworth building during an insurrection. The riot at the Capitol was neither peaceful nor ‘a day of love,’ as President-Elect Trump has continually tried to reframe it,” Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, Democrat of Pennsylvania, wrote on X after Trump’s certification.
“Today, because Republicans are satisfied with the results of this election, the certification is little more than a perfunctory event—and that's not only because Republicans are happy with the outcome but because democracy worked,” she added.
Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, warned that Americans should not feel secure because this year’s certification went off without a hitch, saying that it was only peaceful because Democrats are not violent sore losers like the GOP.
“I’m in the Capitol right now to certify the electoral vote. It is quiet,” he wrote on X. “Do not take that for granted. Do not think our democracy is healthy. No, our democracy is in grave peril because one party still believes in using violence to achieve power.”
