Trump certified as 2024 election winner, set to become President

America's capital woke up to heavy snow and freezing temperatures on Monday.

- Prashant Jha

WASHINGTON: The weather authorities issued an advisory warning people not to travel unless absolutely essential. Federal offices were officially closed. And private companies asked employees to work from home. But there was a corner of Southeast DC that was making history.

Up on the Capitol Hill, exactly four years ago, on January 6, hundreds of protesters, egged on by the then President Donald Trump, who lost the 2020 election but refused to concede it, attacked the US Congress. The first attempt in American history to block the peaceful transfer of power failed. And it failed because Trump's own vice president defied him. Mike Pence did what he had to in his capacity as the president of the Senate - he presided a joint session of the US Congress at the end of a violent day and certified the electoral outcome in favor of Joe Biden.

Trump lost, in disgrace.

On Monday, even as it snowed outside, lawmakers trudged up to inside of the US Congress and American democracy returned to the ceremonial, somewhat boring, ritual that marks the certification of the election results. But contained in it were multiple ironies - the man who lost last time won, and the woman who lost this time had to certify her rival's win.