Serving as the Vice President, Kamala Harris fulfilled her duty to certify the electoral votes cast in the 2024 presidential election with a knowing smile.

It marked a humiliating finale to her own failed White House bid. 

During a joint session of Congress comprising members from both the Senate and the House of Representatives, Harris stood alongside Republican Speaker Mike Johnson.

She was then forced to listen as the state-by-state results of the election were read out, laying bare the extent of her own defeat by Donald Trump.

During the campaign Harris had repeatedly called the president-elect a threat to democracy, a fascist, ‘petty tyrant’ and aspiring dictator.

Meanwhile, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, also a current Ohio senator, sat in the front row and observed the proceedings without much visible emotion, occasionally mustering a mild and sometimes lackluster applause for the announcement of states won by himself and Trump.

Methodically, after the votes from each of the states and U.S. territories were counted and confirmed, Harris proclaimed Trump and Vance victorious. 

‘Donald J. Trump of the state of Florida has received 312 votes,’ Harris said in a steady, emotionless voice.

‘This announcement of the state of the vote by the president of the senate shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons elected president and vice president of the United States,’ she continued.  

Her pronouncement that Trump is to be the 47th president was met with load roars of approval and a standing ovation from Republicans. 

‘Kamala Harris of the state of California received 226 votes,’ she continued, this time Democrats standing and cheering her on. 

On a quiet snowy day four years after the ransacking of the Capitol by a crowd of crazed activists on January 6, 2021, Trump, after spending some time in the political wilderness, was again was named a presidential contest winner. 

The joint session featured many colorful moments as lawmakers reconvened for the second day of the 119th Congress. 

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 84, hobbled into the chamber using a walker after suffering a broken hip after falling down some marble stairs during a trip to Europe just before Christmas. 

Pelosi had managed to make it back from across the pond last week to vote in the contentious House speaker vote. She had undergone hip replacement surgery while abroad, but the walker with its customary tennis balls was a newly unveiled accessory. 

Former Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, who was also injured during a fall last month, was seen wearing a blue medical face mask at the joint session. 

Meanwhile, social media users blasted the VP for the mortifying moment. 

Huge standing ovation as Kamala Harris announces how badly she got spanked in the election,’ said Jordan Conradson of Gateway Pundit. ‘How embarrassing.’ 

Another X user wrote: ‘You may feel humiliated from time to time, but you’ll never feel as humiliated as Kamala Harris reading off the certification of Donald J. Trump for POTUS to a thunderous applause of her congressional peers…’ 

Harris’ presiding over the joint session adds her to a unique club of VPs who have had to embarrassingly exclaim the victory for the man they ran against. 

According to the Constitution, the vice president, as the leader of the Senate, is entrusted with the process of declaring the result of a White House election. 

Harris now follows in the footsteps of Al Gore, vice president to Bill Clinton, who had to certify his defeat to Republican George W. Bush in 2001.

Richard Nixon, as then-vice president to Dwight D. Eisenhower, similarly had to sign off on the results of his loss to John F. Kennedy after the 1960 election.

The moment for Harris, though surely bittersweet, must have been a lot more boring than her experience during the last electoral certification, during which she was a Senator from California.  

Four years ago, as her predecessor then-VP Mike Pence and Congress readied to certify President Joe Biden’s electoral victory over Trump, the infamous January 6 riot broke out. 

Thousands stormed the Capitol grounds that day. Some fought with law enforcement while others broke windows to enter the House floor and halt Biden’s election certification. 

The plan worked, for a time, but Pence and Congress returned hours after the riotous mob drove the politicians out. 

At around 3:30 am on January 7, Biden’s victory was confirmed. 

This time around the certification was much more mundane.  

Earlier in the day Harris confirmed that she would indeed certify the election results that were not in her favor.   

‘The peaceful transfer of power is one of the most fundamental principles of American democracy,’ Harris said in a video posted to her X account. 

‘As much as any other principle, it is what distinguishes our system of government from monarchy and tyranny,’ she said. 

The VP also alluded to the January 6th attack four years later.  

‘As we have seen, our democracy can be fragile,’ she noted. 

‘And it is up to then each one of us to stand up for our most cherished principles and to make sure in American our government always remains of the people, by the people and for the people.’ 

Her statement seemed to be one last act of defiance against the incoming Republican before he gets sworn into office on January 20.