Pence declares Biden winner of the presidential election after Congress finally counts electoral votes John Wagner, Felicia Sonmez, Mike DeBonis, Karoun Demirjian, Amy B Wang, Colby Itkowitz, Paulina Firozi
Pence declares Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election
Replay Video Vice President Pence declared Democrat Joe Biden the winner of the presidential election at the end of a violent and deadly day at the Capitol. Pence also announced that Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) had won the vice presidency, after the Senate and House rejected Trump loyalists’ challenges to Biden’s win in Pennsylvania and Congress finally counted the electoral votes.
Trump Pledges an Orderly Transition to a Biden Presidency Bloomberg 1/7/2021 Josh Wingrove
(Bloomberg) President Donald Trump, minutes after Congress certified President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory and hours after Trump supporters broke into the Capitol, pledged “an orderly transition.”
“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th,” Trump said in a statement posted on Twitter by his aide Dan Scavino early Thursday morning.
Trump’s statement came as staff resigned and as congressional allies abandoned him in the aftermath of a mob of his supporters laying siege to the Capitol on Wednesday.
Biden Victory Is Certified After Day of Debate and Tumult Bloomberg 1/7/2021 Jennifer Epstein, Billy House and Erik Wasson
(Bloomberg) Joe Biden was formally recognized by Congress as the next U.S. president early Thursday, ending two months of failed challenges by his predecessor, Donald Trump, that exploded into violence at the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers met to ratify the election result.
The Democratic president-elect’s victory was sealed after House and Senate members fended off a final round of objections to the Nov. 3 election outcome raised by a handful of Republicans on Trump’s behalf. The proceedings were disrupted for several hours as a pro-Trump mob overran police lines, besieged the House chamber and entered the Senate chamber, sending lawmakers fleeing for safety.
Vice President Mike Pence asked a federal judge in Texas to deny a Republican congressman’s emergency request for a court order that would essentially allow the vice president to reverse Donald Trump’s election loss during a joint session of Congress Wednesday.