New York Times: “If there were a secret ballot among Democratic senators, Mr. Schumer would tell the president, no more than five would say he should continue running. Mr. Biden’s own pollsters assessed that he had about a 5 percent chance of prevailing against Donald Trump, Mr. Schumer would tell him — information that was apparently news to the president. And if the president refused to step aside, the senator would argue, the consequences for Democrats and Mr. Biden’s own legacy after a half-century of public service would be catastrophic.”

Said Schumer: “If you run and you lose to Trump, and we lose the Senate, and we don’t get back the House, that 50 years of amazing, beautiful work goes out the window. But worse — you go down in American history as one of the darkest figures.”

“Vice President Kamala Harris has told close allies and family members she is disappointed in President Biden’s recent contention that he would have won the 2024 election, straining relations between the two during their final days in the White House,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Harris has been reluctant to distance herself from Biden or criticize him throughout her vice presidency. Even as several top Democrats pushed her to break from the unpopular president after she replaced him atop the ticket, Harris refused. She vocally supported Biden after his halting debate performance in June, when several Democrats were calling on him to step aside, and when a special counsel report on Biden’s handling of classified documents amplified concerns about his mental acuity.”

“Harris has expressed deep sadness to people close to her over losing the election and Biden’s comments.”

First lady Jill Biden told the Washington Post that it was “disappointing” that Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was the one whose decisive intervention pushed President Biden out of the 2024 campaign.

Said Biden: “We were friends for 50 years. It was disappointing.”

She added: “Let’s just say I was disappointed with how it unfolded. I don’t know. I learned a lot about human nature. I think that’s all I’m going to say.”

“A coalition of MAGA die-hards, tech bros and blue-collar workers were key to Donald Trump’s November victory,” Politico reports.

“Now, some of them are already at each other’s throats.”

“Free traders and protectionists are at odds over Trump’s promise to enact “universal” tariffs. Immigration hard-liners are butting heads with tech companies that support legal immigration. And isolationists are grappling with the president-elect’s apparently increasingly expansionist global agenda.”

“And days before he takes office some of Trump’s most ardent original supporters have been the most resistant to the bigger tent.”

Playbook: “The ‘victory’ part didn’t pan out for the Harris Victory Fund. But the funding part remains alive and well on the bank statements of some Democratic donors.”

“Two months after Kamala Harris’ defeat, the joint fundraising committee her campaign set up with the Democratic National Committee is still charging monthly recurring donors to the committee… And some donors are not happy.”

Said a Democratic operative: “It’s silly, out of touch, and needlessly takes advantage of our most loyal supporters.”

President Biden told USA Today that he would’ve won re-election: “It’s presumptuous to say that, but I think yes.”

But he was unsure if he could have served another full four-year term: “So far, so good. But who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 86 years old? … Who the hell knows?”

“Former Vice President Mike Pence released a statement praising Vice President Kamala Harris and members of Congress for a peaceful transfer of power after certifying Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election,” USA Today reports.

Said Pence: “The peaceful transfer of power is the hallmark of our democracy.”

Congress has certified President-elect Donald Trump’s Electoral College victory in the 2024 election in a meeting that took roughly 30 minutes, Punchbowl News reports.

Not a single lawmaker challenged the result of the election. It stood in extraordinarily stark contrast to Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob attacked the Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election.

“A joint session of Congress is set to convene at 1 p.m. to perform a ritual that was considered ceremonial and uneventful before a mob of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol in 2021,” the New York Times reports.

Leave your reaction in the comments.

Matthew Yglesias: “Electoral politics in a two-party system is hard. So much is at stake at the ballot box — tax policy, abortion rights, immigration, and a million other things, all of which are incredibly important. I deeply respect and admire the decision made by Liz Cheney and a handful of others to take a fully principled stand on the January 6 question, but I also respect (or at least understand) the decision of those who’ve decided they care more about other things than about Trump’s low character and basic unfitness for office.”

“But what disturbs me is the extent to which the entire conservative movement has retconned not just the events of four years ago, but their own reactions to those events, such that these days, to be disturbed by them is considered some form of lib hysteria.”

“The reality is quite the opposite.”

William Kristol: “George Orwell wrote that in our day ‘restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.’”

“So let me restate the obvious: January 6, 2021 is a day that should live in infamy.”

“But for the next four years January 6th won’t live in infamy. Because in two weeks the man who incited January 6th, the man who now excuses it—no, celebrates it—will be sworn in as our next president.”

“So the obvious if unpleasant fact is that today we as a nation are in a worse condition, facing a more ominous future, than we faced four years ago.”

“It’s the fourth anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, a solemn reminder of a day that rattled U.S. democracy and set off far-reaching legal and political ramifications,” the Washington Post reports.

“But it’s an especially disheartening occasion this year for those who spent last year campaigning against Donald Trump on the issue of democracy, hoping that his central role leading up to Jan. 6 would disqualify him among voters.”

“Instead, they handed Trump a second term in the November election, and he is returning to the White House largely unapologetic about the events of that day — and even promising to pardon those charged in connection with the attack.”

John Ganz: “We are accustomed to repeating now that Trump’s coalition is fragile or that there are intrinsic weaknesses in his governing style. True so far as it goes, but how fragile is a coalition that reformed and expanded after he attempted to overthrow the U.S. government? And how weak is someone who managed to suffuse the atmosphere with a sense of total credulity about himself and total cynicism about his opponents?”

“This is an attitude now shared even among those who do not consider themselves his supporters. There is now a process of retrospective legitimation, as if the vote somehow wipes the slate clean, and makes lies the truth…”

“Some of that can be blamed on the failure of the media or the opposition party, but some credit has to be given to Trump himself. The great insult comic has landed his jibes: he has embarrassed the opposition, he has humiliated them. They are forced to laugh along now or look like spoilsports.”

David Ferris: How the January 6 insurrectionists won in the end.

Playbook: “Every indication is that it will go smoothly. No riots, no storming of the Capitol, no delays. Of course, a few things are different this time compared to 2021: There’s a formidable fencing system up around the Capitol, the overnight snowstorm has made it difficult to get around the city and no Democratic congressional leaders are doing what many Republican leaders did four years ago by publicly questioning the validity of the election results.”

Joshua Spivak: “At least 108 recalls went to the ballot in 2024, with 77 resulting in removal and 31 officials surviving the vote. Sixteen officials resigned in the face of a serious recall effort, and one official in Flint, Mich., died before the recall vote was held.”