On January 6, 2025, a joint session of Congress certified President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, fulfilling a vital democratic tradition that was violently disrupted four years ago. This time, there was no sign of unrest, though security at the Capitol was heightened. Unlike President-elect Trump in 2020, Vice President Kamala Harris did not dispute her loss in the November election, and Democrats refrained from raising any objections during the certification of Electoral College votes.
Vice President Harris presided over the certification process with dignity, even as it confirmed her loss. The session proceeded smoothly, with lawmakers from both parties reading out each state’s electoral votes in alphabetical order and declaring them “regular in form and authentic.” The only noticeable partisan divide came in the applause: Republicans celebrated the states won by Trump, while Democrats cheered for those carried by Harris. The session ended with a standing ovation from Republicans as Trump’s majority was announced.
Earlier in the day, Vice President Harris described her role as “a sacred obligation,” emphasizing her commitment to the Constitution and democracy. She told reporters in the Rotunda that the key takeaway was that “Democracy must be upheld by the people.” Aides described the peaceful transfer of power as one of the most significant acts of her vice presidency. As Harris led senators to the House chamber, she exchanged polite words with House Speaker Mike Johnson, who had played a prominent role in contesting the 2020 election results.
The calm and orderly certification process starkly contrasted to the violent events of January 6, 2021. This year, the Capitol was under heavy lockdown, with tall metal fencing and enhanced security measures designated by the Department of Homeland Security as a “national special security event.” The increased precautions reflected the lessons learned from the 2021 riot, which was tied to the deaths of seven people, including three police officers, after Trump’s false claims of a stolen election incited his supporters to storm the Capitol.
In the days leading up to the certification, President Joe Biden stressed the importance of a smooth transition of power while urging Americans to remember the events of January 6, 2021. Writing in The Washington Post, Biden accused Trump and his supporters of attempting “to rewrite — even erase — the history of that day.” Despite Trump’s campaign promises to pardon individuals convicted for their actions during the 2021 riot, Democrats refrained from challenging the election results, prioritizing constitutional norms over partisan conflict.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer underscored the importance of upholding democratic principles and warned Trump against pardoning those responsible for the January 6 violence. “It would be a dangerous endorsement of political violence,” Schumer said. “It is wrong, it is reckless, and would be an insult to the memory of those who died in connection to that day.” With the peaceful certification complete, the nation moves forward under Trump’s leadership, but the shadow of January 6 remains a potent reminder of the fragility of democracy.
The Biden Administration announced on December 31, 2024 that it is leveling sanctions on entities in Iran and Russia over attempted election interference. The Treasury Department said the entities, a subordinate organization of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a Moscow-based affiliate of Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, attempted to interfere in the 2024 elections.
“As affiliates of the IRGC and GRU, these actors aimed to stoke socio-political tensions and influence the U.S. electorate during the 2024 U.S. election,” said the Treasury Department in a news release. “The Governments of Iran and Russia have targeted our election processes and institutions and sought to divide the American people through targeted disinformation campaigns,” Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith said in the statement. “The United States will remain vigilant against adversaries who would undermine our democracy,” Smith added.
A spokesperson for Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York said that Iran has denied interfering in US elections “on multiple occasions,” citing past statements that denied the allegations and calling them “devoid of any credibility and legitimacy,” “fundamentally unfounded” and “wholly inadmissible.” “Our reaction remains the same,” said Ali Karimi Magham, a mission spokesperson. Russia’s Embassy in Washington, D.C., denied the US allegations in a statement, saying “we respect the will of the American people.”
The Treasury sanctions announcement on December 31 said that the named Cognitive Design Production Center, acting on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, planned operations “since at least 2023 … to incite socio-political tensions among the U.S. electorate.” The Treasury also said the Moscow-based Center for Geopolitical Expertise, “at the direction of, and with financial support from, the GRU,” directed and subsidized “the creation and publication of deepfakes and circulated disinformation about candidates in the U.S. 2024 general election.” That included disinformation that was “designed to imitate legitimate news outlets to create false corroboration between the stories, as well as to obfuscate their Russian origin,” the department’s release said.
US intelligence officials said in September that propagandists in Russia, Iran and China were using artificial intelligence in efforts to deceive Americans and interfere in the 2024 presidential election. Though none of the entities sanctioned by the Treasure Department are affiliated with China, the department said in a separate letter Monday that its computers had been hacked in a state-sponsored Chinese operation in “a major incident.” China denied that allegation.
President Joe Biden on January 5 delivered a ferocious condemnation of former President Donald Trump, his likely 2024 opponent, warning in searing language that the former President had directed an insurrection and would aim to undo the nation’s bedrock democracy if he returned to power. On the eve of the third anniversary of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by former President Trump’s supporters, President Biden framed the coming election as a choice between a candidate devoted to upholding America’s centuries-old ideals and a chaos agent willing to discard them for his benefit. “There’s no confusion about who Trump is or what he intends to do,” Biden warned in a speech at a community college not far from Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, where George Washington commanded troops during the Revolutionary War. Exhorting supporters to prepare to vote this fall, he said: “We all know who Donald Trump is. The question is: Who are we?”
In an intensely personal address that at one point nearly led President Joe Biden to curse former President Donald Trump by name, the President compared his rival to foreign autocrats who rule by fiat and lies. He said former President Trump had failed the basic test of American leaders, to trust the people to choose their elected officials and abide by their decisions. “We must be clear,” Biden said. “Democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is on the ballot.”
President Joe Biden’s harshness on his rival illustrated what his campaign believes to be the stakes of the 2024 election and his perilous political standing. Confronted with low approval ratings, bad head-to-head polling against former President Donald Trump, worries about his age, and lingering unease with the economy, President Biden is turning increasingly to the figure who has proved to be Democrats’ single best motivator. Former President Donald Trump, speaking at a campaign rally in Iowa soon after President Joe Biden’s appearance, quickly lashed back, calling the president’s comments “pathetic fearmongering” and accusing him of “abusing George Washington’s legacy.”
President Joe Biden’s remarks carried echoes of the 2020 campaign when he presented himself as the caretaker of “the soul of America” against a Trump presidency that he and Democratic supporters argued was on the verge of causing permanent damage to the country. The 31-minute speech was President Biden’s first public campaign event since he announced in April 2023 that he would seek re-election and was, in tone and content, arguably his most forceful public denunciation of former President Donald Trump since the two men became political rivals in 2019.
President Joe Biden’s appearance, meant as a kickoff to help define the 2024 campaign, was an early effort to revive the politically sprawling anti-Trump coalition that propelled Democrats to key victories in recent elections. Mr. Biden’s task now is to persuade those voters to view the 2024 contest as the same kind of national emergency that they sensed in 2018, 2020, and 2022. He began with an extensive recounting of former President Donald Trump’s actions before, during, and after the January 6 attack. The country, President Biden said, cannot afford to allow Trump and his supporters to present a whitewashed version of that day and spread falsehoods about the violent outcome of their effort to undo the 2020 election results. Upholding the nation’s democracy, Biden said, is “the central cause of my presidency.”
President Joe Biden made no mention of the 91 felony charges the former president faces in four jurisdictions, sticking to a vow to steer clear of his rival’s legal problems and focusing squarely on Trump’s actions rather than any potential criminal consequences for them. “Trump exhausted every legal avenue available to overturn the 2020 election. The legal path took him back to the truth, that I won the election and he was a loser,” Biden said. “He had one act left, one desperate act available to him, the violence of January 6.”
For a president who has faced intense scrutiny over his vigor in public appearances, the speech was a deftly delivered, focused argument about this year’s stakes. It was President Joe Biden’s latest attempt to build his political identity around the ideas of restoring national unity and upholding fairness, democracy, and collective patriotism. He has come back to those themes many times, during his brief push for voting rights legislation in early 2022, then as the midterm elections approached, and most recently in September, during a speech in Arizona honoring former Senator John McCain.
In the speech, President Joe Biden sought to frame former President Donald Trump as the leader of a cult of personality, and his Republican allies as sycophants. The president mentioned the recent $148 million judgment against Rudolph W. Giuliani for his lies about Georgia election workers, as well as the $787.5 million that Fox News was ordered to pay to settle a defamation case about its role in spreading election lies. Biden lamented that Fox News hosts and Republican officials who condemned Trump’s January 6 behavior in the moment had since changed their tune and repeated his falsehoods. “Politics, fear, and money all intervened, and now these MAGA voices who know the truth about Jan. 6 have abandoned democracy,” Biden said.
What remains unclear is how much President Joe Biden’s democracy pitch will resonate with voters who remain nervous about an improving economy, and wary of re-electing an 81-year-old who is already the oldest president in US history. Even some who have expressed deep fears about Trump’s authoritarian impulses are skeptical that the subject will be a winning message in 2024. “As a Biden campaign theme, I think the threat to democracy pitch is a bust,” 2012 Republican Presidential nominee, prominent Trump critic, and Utah Senator Mitt Romney, wrote in a text message to a New York Times reporter. “January 6 will be four years old by the election. People have processed it, one way or another. Biden needs fresh material, a new attack, rather than kicking a dead political horse.”
President Joe Biden threaded his speech with warnings that former President Donald Trump and Republicans would threaten not only democracy but also major Democratic priorities, abortion rights, voting rights, and economic and environmental justice. Ian Bassin, the executive director of Protect Democracy, a nonprofit dedicated to combating authoritarianism, said he had stressed to Biden’s aides that the president needed to connect democracy to voters’ personal experiences on other issues, in the same way Trump repeats to his supporters that prosecutions of him are persecutions of them. “Democracy is not just a way of structuring elections for order in our government,” Mr. Bassin said. “It’s a set of values about the kind of communities we want to live in and the way that we want to live as neighbors.”
President Joe Biden warned in his speech that former President Donald Trump was not being shy about what he would do in a second term. “Trump’s assault on democracy isn’t just part of his past. It’s what he’s promising for the future,” President Biden said. “He’s not hiding the ball.” Biden then recounted, in exacting detail, how a Trump campaign rally last year began with a choir of rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6 singing the national anthem while a video of the damage played on a big screen. Trump had watched with approval. The scene, Biden suggested, would be the nation’s fate if Trump and his allies returned to power. “This is like something out of a fairy tale,” Biden said. “A bad fairy tale.”
Former President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on January 3 to allow him to stay on the presidential primary ballot in Colorado, saying a state ruling banning him was unconstitutional, unfair, and based on a January 6 insurrection that his appeal said did not happen. The court filing, dominated by technical and procedural challenges to the Colorado Supreme Court ruling last month, does not ask the high court to weigh in on whether the former president indeed participated in an insurrection. The state’s highest court concluded that Trump indeed engaged in the January 6 insurrection effort and thus was banned from running under an obscure, Civil War-era clause in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment banning such a person from holding office.
Former President Donald Trump’s appeal, which experts expect the high court to consider, instead argues that the Colorado court had no business getting involved in the matter at all and that keeping Trump off the ballot would deprive voters of their right in a democracy to choose their leaders. The decision is “a ruling that, if allowed to stand, will mark the first time in the history of the US that the judiciary has prevented voters from casting ballots for the leading major-party presidential candidate,” said the court papers filed late Wednesday afternoon, two days before a deadline to appeal or get booted off the Colorado Republican Party primary ballot.
The Colorado court ruled in favor of six Republican and independent voters who said the “insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution makes Trump ineligible to hold office and thus, not qualified to be on the ballot. That clause, originally directed at Confederates, says no one can hold office who has previously taken an oath to support the Constitution but then engaged in an insurrection or provided help to enemies of the US.
Former President Donald Trump’s team, in their legal brief, argued that Congress gets to decide a candidate’s eligibility to serve as president. And while the appeal was specific to the Colorado case, it tacitly invited the high court to offer a ruling that applied nationwide. “It would be beyond absurdity” for the ballot question to be determined by 51 separate state and District of Columbia jurisdictions rather than federal courts, the brief said. “The election of the President of the United States is a national matter, with national implications, that arises solely under the federal Constitution and does not implicate the inherent or retained authority of the states.”
The brief said former President Donald Trump was never an “officer” of the US and that the oath he took as president was different than those taken by other public servants, meaning he was not subject to the ban on insurrectionists. Further, the court papers said, the clause merely says such an individual cannot serve – not that he or she can’t run for office. The term “insurrection” is unclear, the brief said, and anyway, his lawyers said, Trump did not engage in “insurrection.” “Trump never told his supporters to enter the Capitol, either in his speech at the Ellipse or in any of his statements or communications before or during the events at the Capitol,” the appeal said. “To the contrary, his only explicit instructions called for protesting “peacefully and patriotically” to “support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement,” to “[s]tay peaceful” and to “remain peaceful.”
Jena Griswold, Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state, urged the high court to settle the matter. “Donald Trump just filed an appeal to the US Supreme Court to consider whether he is eligible to appear on Colorado’s Presidential Primary ballot. I urge the Court to consider this case as quickly as possible,” Griswold wrote on social media.
The appeal is virtually certain to be heard by a Supreme Court whose reputation as an unbiased arbiter has suffered immensely in recent years. Questions about ethical transgressions, along with the stunning 2022 reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing abortion rights, have turned the court, in the eyes of many Americans, into another partisan entity. The Trump case puts the court in an extremely uncomfortable position: No matter how it may rule, and no matter the legal arguments used to justify it, the decision is likely to cause a backlash from some political segments in deeply divided America. The high court was the target of criticism after its 2000 ruling that effectively made George W. Bush president. And while the justices may not want to enter that political fray again, competing decisions on the insurrection clause likely means the Supreme Court will have no choice but to get involved.
Former PresidentDonald Trump, aiming to become only the second commander-in-chief ever elected to two nonconsecutive terms, announced on November 15 night that he will seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. “In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump told a crowd gathered at Mar-a-Lago, his waterfront estate in Florida, where his campaign will be headquartered. Surrounded by allies, advisers, and conservative influencers, Trump delivered a relatively subdued speech, rife with spurious and exaggerated claims about his four years in office.
Despite a historically divisive presidency and his own role in inciting an attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, President Donald Trump aimed to evoke nostalgia for his time in office, frequently contrasting his first-term accomplishments with the Biden administration’s policies and the current economic climate. Many of those perceived accomplishments, from strict immigration actions to corporate tax cuts and religious freedom initiatives, remain deeply polarizing to this day. As Trump spoke to a roomful of Republicans who expect him to face primary challengers in the coming months, he also claimed the party cannot afford to nominate “a politician or conventional candidate” if it wants to win back the White House. “This will not be my campaign, this will be our campaign all together,” Trump said.
Donald Trump’s long-awaited campaign comes as he tries to reclaim the spotlight following the Republican parties underwhelming midterm elections performance – including the losses of several Trump-endorsed election deniers – and the subsequent blame game that has unfolded since Election Day. Republicans failed to gain a Senate majority, came up short in their efforts to fill several statewide seats, and have yet to secure a House majority, with only 215 races called in their favor so far out of the 218 needed, developments that have forced Trump and other party leaders into a defensive posture as they face reproval from within their ranks.
To the delight of aides and allies who have long advised him to mount a forward-looking campaign, Donald Trump spent only a fraction of his remarks repeating his lies about the 2020 election. Though he advocated for the use of paper ballots and likened America’s election system to that of “third world countries,” Trump also tried at times to broaden his grievances, lamenting the “massive corruption” and “entrenched interests” that in his view have consumed Washington. Many of Trump’s top advisers have expressed concern that his fixation on promoting conspiracies about the last presidential election would make it harder for him to win a national election in 2024. Throughout the hour-long speech, Trump made clear that he wants his campaign to be seen by Republicans as a sacrificial undertaking. “Anyone who truly seeks to take on this rigged and corrupt system will be faced with a storm of fire that only a few could understand,” he said at one point, describing the legal and emotional toll his presidency and post-presidential period has taken on his family members.
On the heels of last week’s midterm elections, Donald Trump has been blamed for elevating flawed candidates who spent too much time parroting his claims about election fraud, alienating key voters and ultimately leading to their defeats. He attempted to counter that criticism, noting that Republicans appear poised to retake the House majority and touting at least one Trump-endorsed candidate, Kevin Kiley of California. At one point, Trump appeared to blame his party’s midterm performance on voters not yet realizing “the total effect of the suffering” after two years of Democratic control in Washington. “I have no doubt that by 2024, it will sadly be much worse and they will see clearly what has happened and is happening to our country – and the voting will be much different,” he claimed.
Donald Trump is betting that his first-out-of-the-gate strategy will fend off potential primary rivals and give him an early advantage with deep-pocketed donors, aides say. He is widely expected to be challenged by both conservative and moderate Republicans, though the calculus of some presidential hopefuls could change now that he is running. Others, like his former Vice President, Mike Pence, may proceed anyway.
Donald Trump’s third presidential bid also coincides with a period of heightened legal peril as Justice Department officials investigating him and his associates revisit the prospect of indictments in their Trump-related probes. The former President is currently being investigated for his activities before and during the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol and his retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after he left office. While Trump is counting on an easy path to the GOP nomination with his sustained support among the party’s base, his announcement is likely to dash the hopes of party leaders who have longed for fresh talent. In particular, top Republicans have been paying close attention to the next moves of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who won his reelection contest with a 19-point margin of victory and considerable support from minority and independent voters. Some Republican leaders may try to scuttle Trump’s campaign by elevating or encouraging alternative candidates, including DeSantis, who has been quietly laying the groundwork for a possible White House bid of his own.
Of course, any effort to inhibit Trump’s path to the nomination is likely to prove difficult. Despite his myriad legal entanglements and the stain of January 6, the twice-impeached 45th president remains immensely popular among most Republican voters and boasts a deep connection with his core backers that could prove difficult for other GOP hopefuls to replicate or weaken. Even leading conservatives who disliked Trump’s pugnacious politics and heterodox policies stuck with him as president because he helped solidify the rightward shift of the US Supreme Court with his nominations – one of the most far-reaching aspects of his legacy, which resulted in the conservative court majority’s deeply polarizing June decision to end federal abortion rights. In fact, while Trump ended his first term with the lowest approval rating of any president, Republicans viewed him favorably, according to a May NBC News poll. That alone could give Trump a significant edge over primary opponents whom voters are still familiarizing themselves with.
Among those potential competitors is Mike Pence, who would likely benefit from high name recognition due to his role as vice president. Pence, who has been preparing for a possible White House run in 2024, is sure to face an uphill battle courting Trump’s most loyal supporters, many of whom soured on the former vice president after he declined to overstep his congressional authority and block certification of now-President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. Trump could also find himself pitted against DeSantis, who has risen to hero status among cultural conservatives and who is widely considered a more polished version of Trump. Even some of the former president’s advisers have voiced similar observations to CNN, noting that DeSantis also made inroads with major Republican donors during his quest for reelection and built a mountain of goodwill with GOP leaders by campaigning for federal and statewide Republican candidates in the middle of his own race.
Beyond his potential rivals, Donald Trump has another roadblock in his path as the House select committee continues to investigate his role in January 6, 2021, and Justice Department officials weigh whether to issue criminal charges. The committee, which subpoenaed him for testimony and documents in October and which Trump is now battling in court, held public hearings throughout the summer and early fall featuring depositions from those in Trump’s inner circle at the White House, including members of his family, that detailed his public and private efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results through a sustained pressure campaign on numerous local, state and federal officials, and on his own vice president.
From the moment Donald Trump left Washington, defeated and disgraced, in January 2021, he began plotting a return to power, devoting the bulk of his time to building a political operation intended for this moment. With assistance from numerous former aides and advisers, he continued the aggressive fundraising tactics that had become a marker of his 2020 campaign, amassing a colossal war chest ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, and worked diligently to elect steadfast allies in both Congress and state legislatures across the country. Through it all, Trump continued to falsely insist that the 2020 election was stolen from him, indulging in far-flung conspiracy theories about voter fraud and pressuring Republican leaders across the party’s election apparatus to endorse changes that would curtail voting rights. rump’s aides were pleased earlier this fall when his public appearances and rally speeches gradually became more focused on rising crime, immigration and economic woes, key themes throughout the midterm cycle and issues they hope will enable him to draw a compelling contrast with Biden as he begins this next chapter.
Despite his campaigning, there is no guarantee that Donald Trump will glide easily to a nonconsecutive second term. Not only does history offer just one example of such a feat (defeated in 1888 after his first term, President Grover Cleveland was elected again in 1892), no previously impeached president has ever run again for office. Trump was first impeached in 2019 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of justice, and then again in 2021 for inciting the riot at the US Capitol. Though he was acquitted by the Senate both times, 10 House Republicans broke with their party the second time around to join Democrats in a vote to impeach him. Seven Republican senators voted to convict him at his Senate trial. Trump has also been the subject of a bevy of lawsuits and investigations, including a New York state investigation and a separate Manhattan district attorney criminal probe into his company’s finances, a Georgia county probe into his efforts to overturn Biden’s election win in the state, and separate Justice Department probes into his campaign’s scheme to put forth fake electors in battleground states and his decision to bring classified materials with him to Mar-a-Lago upon leaving office.
