2025

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday urged his fellow Republicans in Congress to combine his priorities into one massive bill that would cut taxes, bolster border security and increase domestic energy production.

Trump said Republicans could cover the cost – which could amount to trillions of dollars – by raising tariffs on imported goods.

“Republicans must unite, and quickly deliver these Historic Victories for the American People. Get smart, tough, and send the Bill to my desk to sign as soon as possible,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Republicans who control both chambers of Congress by narrow majorities have been weighing a complex legislative strategy that could allow them to bypass Democratic opposition to boost border spending and extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which are due to expire this year.

Lawmakers have been divided over whether to pass those bills separately or combine them into one package, as Trump is urging.

A single bill could potentially allow them to fulfill Trump’s campaign promises quickly, but it could also alienate lawmakers who object to specific provisions. Republicans from high-tax states such as New York and New Jersey, for example, want to change some of the 2017 tax cuts that adversely affected residents in their districts.

Trump is also urging Republicans to eliminate taxes on tipped income, which could increase the overall cost of the legislation.

Republicans plan to invoke a set of complicated budget rules to pass these bills with simple majorities, rather than the supermajority needed to advance most bills in the Senate. That would mean they would not have to appeal to Democrats, but also would limit what they could include in the package.

Republicans also face a high-wire act in the House of Representatives, where their narrow 219-215 majority means they must stay united to pass legislation.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Don Durfee and Saad Sayeed)

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By Gram Slattery

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden implored Americans in an op-ed published on Sunday not to forget the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, writing that the country has a collective obligation to remember the events of that day.

The article, published in The Washington Post, comes a day before the U.S. Congress will meet to formally certify Republican Donald Trump’s election as president and nearly four years after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol in a failed bid to block the certification of his 2020 election loss.

“We must remember the wisdom of the adage that any nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it,” Biden wrote.

“We cannot accept a repeat of what occurred four years ago.”

He added that the election certification process would be peaceful this time around.

Biden has consistently portrayed Trump as a threat to democracy, and he has pointed to Trump’s failure to accept defeat in the 2020 election as proof. The president made defense of democracy a central element of his re-election campaign, which he abandoned in July after mounting concerns about his age.

Kamala Harris, who replaced Biden atop the Democratic ticket, portrayed Trump in similar terms.

Trump was federally indicted for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost, but the case moved slowly and was nowhere near resolution by the time he won the 2024 election in November.

Trump, who will start a second non-consecutive term in two weeks, does not acknowledge his 2020 election loss as legitimate, and he and his allies have peddled false theories about the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

He has promised to issue widespread pardons of people convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6 attack. Many of the convictions related to assaulting law enforcement officers, among other felonies.

“An unrelenting effort has been underway to rewrite – even erase – the history of that day. To tell us we didn’t see what we all saw with our own eyes,” Biden wrote in the Washington Post.

“In time, there will be Americans who didn’t witness the Jan. 6 riot firsthand but will learn about it from footage and testimony of that day, from what is written in history books and from the truth we pass on to our children. We cannot allow the truth to be lost.”

(Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Don Durfee and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday is set to preside over the certification of her defeat to Donald Trump four years after he tried to stop the very process that will now return him to the White House.

In a video message, Harris described her role as a “sacred obligation” to ensure the peaceful transfer of power.

“As we have seen, our democracy can be fragile,” she said. “And it is up to each of us to stand up for our most cherished principles.”

Harris will be joining a short list of other vice presidents to oversee the ceremonial confirmation of their election loss as part of their role of presiding over the Senate.

Richard Nixon did it after losing to John F. Kennedy in 1960. Al Gore followed suit when the U.S. Supreme Court tipped the 2000 election to George W. Bush.

But no other vice president has been holding the gavel when Congress certified their loss to an incoming president who refused to concede a previous defeat. In addition to spreading lies about voter fraud, Trump directed his supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol, where they violently interrupted the proceedings on Jan. 6, 2021, to formalize Joe Biden’s victory.

Harris was at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington that day. A pipe bomb was discovered nearby, and she was evacuated from the building.

During the campaign, she frequently invoked the Jan. 6 attack to warn voters of the danger of returning Trump to the White House. She described him as a “petty tyrant” and “wannabe dictator.”

After Harris lost the election and her bid to be the country’s first female president, she promised in her concession speech to honor the will of voters.

“A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results,” she said. “That principle, as much as any other, distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny.”

No disruptions are expected on Monday. Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump’s transition team and the incoming White House press secretary, said there will be “a smooth transition of power.”

“When Kamala Harris certifies the election results, President Trump will deliver on his promise to serve ALL Americans and will unify the country through success,” she said in a statement.

Leavitt did not respond to a question about Trump’s attempt to use the certification process to overturn his defeat four years ago. At that time, Trump encouraged his vice president, Mike Pence, to disqualify votes from battleground states based on false allegations of fraud.

Pence refused. Trump’s supporters burst into the Capitol and halted the proceedings, forcing lawmakers to hide for their safety. Trump posted on social media that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.”

Police eventually cleared the rioters from the building, and lawmakers reconvened to finish their certification. Scores of Republicans still voted to support challenges to the election result.

“I had no right to overturn the election,” Pence said two years later. “And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

Trump faced criminal charges for trying to stay in power despite losing. However, special counsel Jack Smith dropped the federal case against him after Trump defeated Harris since long-standing Justice Department policy says sitting presidents cannot face criminal prosecution.

A separate case in Georgia over Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election is mired in controversy over the Fulton County district attorney’s romantic relationship with a prosecutor she hired to lead the case.

The most recent example of a vice president certifying their own defeat came after the 2000 election. The battle between Gore and Bush ended up in the courtroom as the campaigns argued over whether Florida should conduct a recount.

Bush won at the U.S. Supreme Court, preventing a recount and allowing his narrow victory to stand.

Congress certified the results on Jan. 6, 2001, over the objections of some Democrats.

“I rise to object to the fraudulent 25 Florida electoral votes,” Rep. Maxine Waters of California said at the time.

Gore slammed the gavel and asked whether the objection met the requirements of being “in writing and signed by a member of the House and a senator.”

“The objection is in writing, and I don’t care that it’s not signed by a member of the Senate,” Waters responded.

“The chair will advise that the rules do care,” Gore said.

After a few rounds of objections, Congress finished the certification.

″May God bless our new president and new vice president and may God bless the United States of America,” Gore said after announcing the results.

Lawmakers gave him a standing ovation.

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