On Monday, US Vice President Kamala Harris will preside over the official certification in Congress of the results of the November presidential election, a contest she lost to Donald Trump.
The date also marks the fourth anniversary of the riot at the US Capitol, when Trump supporters tried to thwart the certification of Democratic President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory. The occasion is usually a mere formality.
Tight security measures are in place in Washington, D.C., and Biden pledged not to repeat the violence that occurred on January 6, 2021, which led to the deaths of many people.
As lawmakers meet in Washington, D.C., the forecast for heavy snow in the US capital could be devastating.
House Speaker Mike Johnson pledged to go ahead with certification at 1:00 EST (18:00 GMT) despite the weather, telling Fox News: “Whether we're in a blizzard or not, we will be.” In that room to make sure this gets done.”
As the current vice president, Harris is required by the US Constitution to formally oversee the certification of the result, after Trump defeated her in the nationwide election on November 5.
Trump won all seven swing states in the country, which helped him win the Electoral College, the mechanism that decides who will assume the presidency. Harris' task on Monday will be to read the number of Electoral College votes won by each candidate.
Trump's second term will begin after his inauguration on January 20. For the first time since 2017, the president's party will also have a majority in both chambers of Congress, albeit a slim one.
Trump's victory marked a stunning political comeback from his electoral defeat in 2020 and his criminal conviction in 2024 — the first for a current or former US president.
In the midst of the recent dramatic presidential campaign, Trump also survived a bullet wound to his ear when a gunman opened fire at one of his campaign rallies in Pennsylvania.
While away from the White House, he has had a slew of legal cases against him, including his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he still disputes.
After his defeat that year, Trump and his allies made baseless claims of widespread voter fraud — claiming the election had been stolen from them.
In a speech in Washington, D.C., on Deposition Day, January 6, 2021, Trump told the crowd to “fight like hell” but also asked them to make their voices heard “peacefully.”
He also tried to pressure his vice president, Mike Pence, to reject the election result — a call that Pence rejected.
The rioters continued to smash barricades and ransack the Capitol building before Trump finally intervened and told them to go home. Many deaths were blamed on violence.
Trump's pledges after returning to office include pardoning people convicted of crimes related to the attack. He says many of them are “unjustly imprisoned,” although he acknowledges that “some of them may have gotten out of control.”
Conversely, Biden called on Americans to never forget what happened.
“We must remember the wisdom of the old adage that any country that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it,” Biden wrote in The Washington Post over the weekend.
As for Trump's Republican Party, new Senate Majority Leader John Thune has signaled his desire to move forward, telling CBS News, the BBC's US partner: “You can't look in the rearview mirror.”
