Trump’s election win to be certified by Congress on fourth anniversary of deadly Capitol riot: Live updates

Here’s more from Kelly Rissman on what promises to be a pretty galling day for the vice president after she spent her summer and fall denouncing the incoming president as a “petty tyrant” and a “fascist” and now finds herself presiding over the formal recognition of his victory.

Donald Trump’s victory over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in November’s presidential election will be formally certified by a joint-session of Congress on Monday, the occasion coinciding with the fourth anniversary of the Capitol riot of January 6 2021.

One of the darkest days in American history, the date will live in infamy for the violent scenes that erupted between Trump supporters and local law enforcement on the steps of the Capitol, clashes that resulted in the deaths of five people and left many more injured as the legislative complex was invaded and vandalized.

The rioters were fired up by the 45th and soon to be 47th president’s false claims that he had been cheated out of a second term by a nationwide conspiracy to rig the 2020 vote in Joe Biden’s favor, which he continues to insist took place despite failing to produce any evidence.

The states’ electoral vote records will be transported to the House of Representatives, where they will be unsealed at 1pm ET (6pm GMT) today and read aloud in alphabetical order.

Given that the duty of presiding over the process falls to the vice president, Harris will have to formalize her own defeat.

House speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi discussed the ongoing threat of political violence and the dangers posed by Donald Trump’s 2020 misinformation campaign in an interview Sunday on Face the Nation.

The former top Democrat in the lower chamber said that her husband, Paul Pelosi, still faces medical issues resulting from a violent attack he suffered in 2022, when an intruder in their home attacked him with a hammer.

The suspect, David DePape, was convicted of the violent attack and found to have been consumed by far-right conspiracy theories promoted by various figures aligned with MAGA Republicanism, including the 2020 stolen election conspiracies promoted by Trump himself.

Incoming first lady Melania Trump will be the subject of a new documentary directed by Brett Ratner and distributed by Amazon Prime Video. The streaming arm of the tech giant got exclusive licensing rights for a streaming and theatrical release later this year, the company said Sunday.

Filming is already underway on the documentary. The company said in a statement that the film will give viewers an “unprecedented behind-the-scenes look” at Melania Trump and also promised a “truly unique story.”

The former and now future first lady also released a self-titled memoir late last year. Her husband takes office on January 20.

Donald Trump is facing criticism for premiering a documentary over the weekend at Mar-a-Lago about an allied lawyer who helped him strategize about how to overturn the 2020 election results.

The film, The Eastman Dilemma: Lawfare of Justice, profiles lawyer John Eastman, who helped Donald Trump formulate an unprecedented, illegal plan to use Congress and the vice-president to overturn the certification of the 2020 election results.

A former Capitol police officer says he has been “devastated” by Donald Trump’s vow to pardon January 6 rioters, four years on from the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

In an op-ed published in The New York Times, Aquilino Gonell, a former sergeant in the Capitol Police, said a pardon “outrageous mistake,” that could put him and other law enforcement officers in danger.

“I remain haunted by that day. Now Mr. Trump’s promised actions could erase the justice we’ve risked everything for,” he said. “Releasing those who assaulted us from blame would be a desecration of justice. If Mr. Trump wants to heal our divided nation, he’ll let their convictions stand.”

But Johnson’s speech afterward did not set the tone, nor did the speech of House Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain.

Rather, it came when House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar nominated Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and called Democrats the “governing majority.”

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon called on the incoming Trump administration to rescind the medal, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

“Send a team to track down Soros and take the medal back,” Bannon said on his War Room podcast. “It is a disgrace that a demonic individual like that—who has been going out of his way to try to destroy this country, to mock this constitutional republic, which he hates and has dedicated his life to destroying—that we would be presenting him, awarding him, the highest civilian honor that you can give.”

“There has never been a President who was so evilly and illegally treated as I,” Trump wrote. “Corrupt Democrat judges and prosecutors have gone against a political opponent of a President, ME, at levels of injustice never seen before.”