What Happened This Week In Washington — And Georgia

Hours after a mob of Trump supporters stormed and occupied the Capitol, forcing Congress to halt its counting of Electoral College votes and evacuate the building, members of Congress came back, kept counting and early Thursday morning ratified Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Congress affirmed that Biden won the Electoral College, 306 to Trump’s 232.

Four people died during the insurrection at the Capitol — a Capitol police officer shot one woman during a standoff in the building and three others suffered “medical emergencies” during the violent scenes, according to the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department chief.

It also dampened some Republican members’ enthusiasm for challenging the count of Biden’s win.

Some.

The objection to Arizona’s electors — which started before lawmakers had to evacuate — was dismissed by a vote of 93-6 in the Senate and 303-121 in the House. That represented a substantial step back from Senate Republicans — before Wednesday, at least a dozen were planning to support the certification objections.

But House Republicans largely stayed the course in challenging the results, raising objections to the tallies from Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania after Congress reconvened. A Republican senator would sign on only to the Pennsylvania objection, which was later rejected 92-7 by the Senate without a debate. The House debate on Pennsylvania lasted the full two hours and got heated, but eventually they rejected the objection too, 282 to 138.

In the end, at nearly 4 a.m. on Thursday, Congress affirmed Biden and Harris as the next president and vice president of the United States. And Trump released a statement committing to “an orderly transition on January 20th” (while repeating false claims about the election).

When we started this live blog, we were focused on Georgia. In case you forgot, Democrats won two Senate seats in Georgia on Tuesday, thus winning control of the next Senate. The 24 hours that followed will long be remembered in U.S. history — as an insurrection, a tragedy, an attempted coup, and, most definitely, as the natural culmination of the Trump presidency.

It is hard to find words to describe the events of today, but after a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol earlier today, breaking up Congress’s efforts to certify the election results, Congress reconvened, at 8 p.m. ET, to once again pick up the debate.

Historically, this vote has been a largely ceremonial one, but in the days leading up to this year’s certification, it became the latest litmus test for politicians’ loyalty to Trump and the newest effort to overturn what the president has repeatedly and baselessly claimed is a rigged election.

Today, we saw the consequences of those actions — violence being incited at the Capitol. The events, though, seem to have some effect on how many GOP senators and representatives have chosen to continue to object to the election results. This was particularly notable in the Senate. Reportedly, 14 GOP senators had planned to object to the results in Arizona, but only six did so in the end. The number of Republican who objected to the results was higher in the House (121).

At this point, both the House and Senate have held their debates over results in Arizona and the objection has failed. It is unclear how many other states’ results will be questioned, as Congress hears objections in alphabetical order. But Hawley has already objected to Pennsylvania’s results, and the House will open the floor to debate.

This could take a while, so we’re shutting down for now as they debate, but the important thing to remember here is that this effort is futile: Congress does not have the votes to overturn the election or any legitimate reason to do so, but this episode remains an unsettling one for our democracy, as it raises the spectre of what might have happened if circumstances were slightly different — which is something Congress and the American public will to have to grapple with in the wake of Trump’s presidency.

Initially, an objection to Georgia’s results was expected, but as Loeffler changed her decision earlier today in light of the violence at the Capitol, there was no objection. We are expecting, however, for Hawley to object to the results in Pennsylvania.