Trump Transition
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The vice president will preside over Congress on Monday as it counts the Electoral College votes finalizing her defeat by Donald J. Trump.
Peter Baker
Reporting from Washington
The vice presidency comes with plenty of indignities, but probably none greater than the one Kamala Harris will endure on Monday when she presides over the certification of her defeat.
Under the Constitution, the vice president takes the gavel when the two houses of Congress meet to formally count the Electoral College votes for president. While not every vice president has chosen to fulfill the duty, Ms. Harris has indicated that she will carry out the task, no doubt painful, of declaring that Donald J. Trump beat her.
Awkward and unpleasant as it may be for Ms. Harris, whose own political future remains uncertain, it is set to be a calmer and less death-defying experience than four years ago when Mr. Trump refused to accept defeat and struggled to hold on to power after voters decided to throw him out of office. A mob he inspired marched on the Capitol and stormed the building to stop Vice President Mike Pence from fulfilling the duty that now falls to Ms. Harris.
Unlike Mr. Trump, Ms. Harris has made no effort to cast doubt on the election but has instead accepted defeat graciously. Neither she nor President Biden has sought to pressure the Justice Department, members of Congress, governors, state legislators or election officials to reverse the vote she lost, as Mr. Trump did four years ago.
She has not filed dozens of lawsuits that would be tossed out by judges as frivolous or unfounded. She has not repeated false fraud allegations or wild conspiracy theories that her own advisers told her were untrue.
Nor has she considered trying to use her role as presiding officer to reject votes for Mr. Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance the way Mr. Trump tried to get Mr. Pence to do to Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris in 2021. (Mr. Pence refused, saying he did not have such power, and Congress subsequently passed a law reaffirming that interpretation.)
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