McConnell is correct that it has become the norm in the past 20 years for House lawmakers on the losing side of a presidential race to put up a protest to results during this usually overlooked process.

​​What’s not normal about 2020 is having senators join in -- especially so many of them -- and in the context of Trump trying to stay in power despite the fact he lost a free and fair election.

And it's an open question whether these Republicans who were in the middle of challenging results as protesters stormed the Capitol will continue to do so when Congress meets again to confirm Biden's win.

​​As McConnell watchers have pointed out, McConnell has said that his most important decision — not vote — was “not to do something,” in reference to blocking President Barack Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland. ​​ ​​On the very same day, almost the same hour, that McConnell was giving this speech, news was breaking that President-elect Joe Biden planned to nominate Garland for the attorney general post.

Pro-Trump protesters were moments away from breaking into the Capitol.

McConnell was giving this speech to his fellow senators as they began debate on the first results that Republicans challenged, Arizona. The rules allow for up to two hours of debate in both chambers; both chambers vote on the challenge, then they return to keep counting votes. There are enough senators who won’t join the objections to vote down any challenge to states’ legitimate results.

But we never got to that first vote on Arizona before pro-Trump protesters stormed the Capitol and forced its evacuation.

Trump was down the street from McConnell, having just wrapped up addressing supporters that the president had encouraged to gather in the nation’s capitol as Congress confirmed Biden’s win.

Moments later, a mob would break into the Capitol and force the entire Congress to evacuate.

One major political consequence that McConnell warns his colleagues of: the demise of the electoral college. (Some Democrats have pushed for such a reform.) The last two Republicans in the White House got there by losing the popular vote but winning the electoral college. Republicans defend the process the way McConnell does here — that it was set up to give more rural states a say.

Like that GOP poll watchers weren’t allowed to see counting of votes in places such as Philadelphia, which the courts — and election officials in the state — pushed back on.

​​Yet another whack at so many of his colleagues in the Senate and House (there could be dozens, maybe even hundreds total who vote not to accept legitimate election results), and their rationalization for doing it. McConnell accuses them of pretending it’s symbolic, when he’s just spent 10 minutes laying out exactly why he and other Republican leaders think this is so dangerous.

McConnell is trying to use a partisan edge here to convince his party — saying, essentially, we can be the party that stops all this chaos and stops smashing through democratic norms.

That was about to get a lot more difficult for Republicans, as mobs encouraged by Trump stormed the Capitol.

This is an important line from the majority leader, and it resonates especially after mobs broke into the Capitol.

But it will not satisfy McConnell’s critics, who argue he played a role in getting to this point by defending Trump at many turns and controversies

As he’s saying this, McConnell is pretty certain there are enough Senate votes to vote down every challenge. But he also sounds very worried about the precedent his party — under his leadership — will set. And he’s directly warning them of not just the principled consequences, but the political ones as well.

And McConnell had no idea how eerily prescient his warnings were about to come in a few minutes.

Just so many remarkable lines from McConnell in this speech. He is telling us how he truly feels.

​​In case you haven’t noticed by now, McConnell is mad. Very mad. ​​He had urged Republican senators not to take on any challenges. (Without a senator on board, the House challenges go nowhere. With senators on board, it forces the chambers to debate each challenge and vote on it.)

McConnell is making arguments that Democrats make as well: Some Republican lawmakers are challenging election results because they say their constituents have questions about them. Well, it was Trump and his Republican allies raising those baseless questions.

McConnell hasn’t said something to this effect very frequently, if at all, since Trump’s loss.

​​After so many misleading and false statements by Trump’s that McConnell has either tacitly or explicitly condoned, it’s remarkable to hear McConnell outright accuse the president of using conspiracy theories to try to stay in power.

​​None of which were considered seriously by courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court

This is the heart of Biden’s speech. He started his campaign and is ending it by describing his election over Trump’s as “a battle for the soul of the nation.” When Biden uses language like that, he is referring particularly to battling racism and the divisiveness the Trump era has exacerbated. He has said he’s come to believe under Trump’s presidency that that kind of mindset can never be defeated, but can be pushed back into the dark.

In the final weeks of campaigning, Trump used hyperbolic language to argue Biden would “lock down the country.” That’s not what Biden said or is saying here. But in this speech, he makes clear it’s a possibility. He has not ruled out urging governors and local leaders to institute mask mandates, or stay-at-home orders, or even a mandate for Americans to get a vaccine. (Though he’s acknowledged especially the latter would be difficult to enforce.)

Biden’s priorities, according to Washington Post reporting), start with: Rejoining the Paris climate accord, repealing Trump’s travel ban on some majority-Muslim countries, reinstating protections for “dreamers” and, of course, try to get the coronavirus under control. But that’s the easy stuff that he can do on his own by executive action. For Biden’s bigger plans, like climate action and providing coronavirus relief, he’s going to need to go through a potentially divided Congress.

As Biden clinched his victory Saturday, there were protests in many states by Trump supporters who believe that the election should not be called yet and that Biden’s victory is not legitimate. In fact, top congressional Republicans have been mostly quiet and not acknowledged Biden is the president-elect or publicly congratulated him. So Biden knows he has some work to do to, in his words, “lower the temperature” of the nation.

Exit polls show that Biden won the presidency with large turnout among voters of color. He also won voters under 45, college graduates, women and independents.

To introduce Biden, Harris gave an emotional speech that reflected on how she's making history: "Tonight, women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality and liberty and justice for all, including the black women who are often too often overlooked but so often prove they are the backbone of our democracy."

Votes are still being counted, but Biden already broke the previous record for most votes for president -- held by former president Barack Obama -- by several million.

The Biden campaign made a big effort Saturday to frame him as an empathetic leader prepared to help America process a deadly pandemic that is worsening. Before Biden got on stage, Vice President-Elect Kamala D. Harris introduced him and said this about his many personal family tragedies: "Joe is a healer, a uniter, a tested and steady hand, a person whose own experience of loss gives him a sense of purpose that will help us as a nation reclaim our own sense of purpose.” And then Biden ended his speech talking about how he hoped his experiences could help other Americans process their grief.

This will be another memorable line from Biden’s victory speech. It’s yet another attempt to reach out to the other side — but also his own — to, as he said earlier, “lower the temperature” in the nation. It’s a fascinating dynamic: A president-elect who desperately wants to be a unifier between two sides who don’t seem to want to be unified. As Biden clinched victory, liberals on social media were sharing a website that threatened to record names, words and actions of people they felt enabled Trump’s presidency. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) also said she wanted a way to remember Trump’s “sycophants.”

He may well have to call on Republicans in Congress, a lot. They narrowed House Democrats’ majority, and they may narrowly control the majority in the Senate when Biden takes office, pending two Georgia special Senate elections. The Washington Post reports it’s not clear if Biden talked to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Saturday, even as Biden made calls to top Democratic leaders.

As Biden said this, he slammed the podium he was talking on to emphasize every word. Black voters were credited with saving Biden’s campaign at a do-or-die moment in South Carolina during the primary. And then they helped give Biden the presidency by coming out to vote in extraordinary numbers across the nation, especially in states in the South.

Drawing on one of the most famous lines ever spoken by his former boss, former President Barack Obama, Biden quickly underscores the core of his campaign will be the core of his presidency: to try for bipartisanship. There were a number of Democrats he was running against in the primaries who did not prioritize reaching out to Republicans nearly as much; in fact, Biden was criticized by some in the party as being naive for wanting to govern by reaching out to Trump supporters. It’s going to be a momentous lift given how this election underscored just how divided the country is.

There’s a reason the first words out of Biden in his speech were an emphatic, unequivocal declaration of victory: The current president has refused to concede and twice this week while votes were being counted falsely claimed he won.

Biden makes a concerted effort to reach out to White voters who voted for Trump in 2016. That's part of his strength, Democrats will say. It's not particularly Harris's, and so she doesn't really try to do that. She's addressing Black Lives Matter supporters in a good chunk of this speech, people who feel left out of a Trump presidency.

This is another headline line from Harris's speech. It's combining two of the three major crises from this summer: the coronavirus and protests against racial injustice. And read another way, she could be signaling to Americans -- particularly Black Americans -- that she plans to fight for Black Lives Matter in the White House, perhaps in a way that Barack Obama didn't feel as free to do.

Uncles and aunts can refer to actual family members, or in Indian culture, the many elders in someone's life. The real news from this line was Harris's use of a Tamil expression, "chittis," which means aunts or aunties. Her mother is from a South Indian state with many ethnic Tamils, reports The Post's Teo Armus.

South Asian Americans are a rising voting bloc in the United States. And as Armus points out, they hold prominent positions, such as Google CEO Sundar Pichai, actress Mindy Kaling and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).

Worth a read: The story of Doug and Kamala, a match literally made in Hollywood.

I was just reading The Post's Matt Viser, who noted that Biden acknowledged he wasn't really into protesting about civil rights and Vietnam in the '60s.

This speech is heavy on biography because it's Harris's chance to introduce herself to a larger group of Americans than those who followed her 2020 presidential campaign. (She dropped out before any votes were cast.) Also, because it's interesting. This speech suggests Harris is going to campaign on her biography, seeing her diverse (and also very modern-American) upbringing as an asset.

The first Black woman elected to Congress.

The first Black woman to serve as a federal judge,

A well-known student organizer of sit-ins during the civil rights era.

An early 20th century civil rights activist who helped set up the historically black college system (Harris graduated from one) and advised President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The first Black president, who spoke just before Harris

Convenient timing for Democrats to send a message to female voters, who could decide this election. Aside from the coronavirus, women's rights was one of the top issues Democrats pushed this convention. And Wednesday night was heavy on it.

In other words: Hey young voters, actually go out in vote in significant numbers this time!

A brief nod to all the drama with the Postal Service under the Trump administration ahead of an election that will be conducted largely by mail.

From a Washington Post-ABC News poll this week: "When asked whether, if Biden were president, the nation’s response to the coronavirus outbreak would be better or worse than it has been under Trump, a plurality of Americans — 46 percent — say better and 24 percent say worse, with nearly all the rest saying it would be about the same."

Again, it helps to have a Black woman vouching for Biden, a White man, on this. (Especially after some of Biden's smaller, but still notable, gaffes about Black Americans during this campaign, like questioning their identity if they vote for Trump or asking in jest a Black reporter if he was a "junkie.")

There have been A LOT of bad things said about Trump at this convention. I imagine part of Harris's challenge in this speech was to say the same thing about Trump that's been said, but in a fresher way. I think she managed that here.

Here, Harris is showcasing what will also be her primary job description these next three months (and longer if they win): How to talk up Biden. It's not a coincidence that the first thing of his long policy career she mentions is a seminal law benefiting women.

Harris's relationship with Beau Biden, who died in 2015 of brain cancer, was another reason Biden said he picked Harris for the job. (It was also a reason the Biden camp was taken so off guard when Harris attacked him during a presidential debate for his position on mandatory school busing.)

This is the somewhat delicate line that Democrats are walking this convention, making the case that a 77-year-old White man is the person to drive cultural and racial unity in America.

Another line from her campaign, often meant to signal that this election will guide the course of the nation for decades, as The Post's Chelsea Janes, who covered Harris, reported.

This is obviously the conversation the nation has been having this summer, and polls show a majority of Americans, including White Americans, are supportive of it. But I wonder how free Harris would have felt to bring all of this up in a major political speech were it not for protesters demanding it get talked about.

This is a pretty direct way of saying what Republican and Democratic strategists say is the main reason for Trump's drop in poll numbers. Americans can't believe that, five months into this virus, their lives still aren't anywhere near back to normal. And polls show a majority of them blame the Trump administration for that.

This is the core of Harris's speech, a message of unity, particularly racial unity (while also attacking Trump). These lines in particular sound like they could be in a Barack Obama speech.

But this speech is also meant to introduce Harris to voters, what she stands for and how she'll help drive Biden-Harris priorities. Harris's ideology has been somewhat difficult to pin down (the Trump campaign has pinned her as the Senate's most liberal senator, which isn't quite right). She doesn't get into that here, which allows her to continue to be a little undefined ideologically.

And Biden will accept the Democratic Party's nomination for president on Thursday, the last night of Democrats' four-day convention. He will be on the same stage Harris was, a largely empty one in Wilmington, Del.

This is a well-known line from Harris's 2020 presidential campaign. As The Fix's Aaron Blake notes, she would often follow it up on the campaign trail with: "And we have a predator in the White House right now.” Just to make super clear whom she might be referring to.

Attacks on Trump at this Democratic convention aren't new, and it's actually part of Harris's job description as vice presidential nominee. But she called on one of her bolder ones which was, well, bold.

Her populist record as attorney general of California, especially in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, is something Joe Biden mentioned in his very first tweet announcing he had picked Harris.

Harris's early career as a prosecutor, and as attorney general of California, are somewhat controversial, especially among Black Americans who might be wary of the law enforcement system. Primarily, Harris pushed a pretty aggressive anti-truancy policy to threaten to jail parents whose students missed too many days of school without a good reason. As The Post's Fact Checker team explains, some parents were jailed.

Harris has since expressed "regret" over pushing the policy, which is still in existence today.

So let's talk about Harris's biracial identity. As she shares, her father is Jamaican, her mother Indian, both immigrants. Her mother recognized that Harris and her sister would be seen by the world first as Black women. So even though her mother wasn't Black and was a single mom, she raised her girls to associate with the Black community, while also talking about Harris's Indian heritage. When asked by The Washington Post last year) if Harris wrestles with her biracial identity as Barack Obama did, she said: "No."

Who is also in politics, a top aide to Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and, of course, Harris's 2020 campaign.

A mid-20th century activist who fought for the right to vote in Mississippi.

A late 19th/early 20th century civil rights activist who helped found the National Association of Colored Women after her friend was lynched.

The first woman to get a major party's nomination for president. Earlier in the night, she offered a warning from her 2016 loss to Democratic voters: Don't stand on the sidelines and let Trump win again.

Things are bad, but hope. Quintessential Obama right here.

In a few sentences, Obama traces the darker sides of the U.S. immigrant story over a century or so.

Maybe a line for Harris to use or borrow from as she campaigns -- which she indicated in her nomination acceptance speech she would -- on her identity as the daughter of two immigrants.

Obama is describing a number of national protests that have sprung up in response to Trump's policy decisions, like the Muslim travel ban, or stepping out of the Paris climate accord, or not supporting gun control legislation. But it's this one, this summer's protests in the wake of George Floyd's and other Black Americans' killings, that he has said made him optimistic, specifically because White and other Americans joined in.

Normally, I'd say this is a Democratic politician's interpretation of Republican policy on voting regulations, but Trump has outright said he's worried that expanding voting will expand Democratic votes (not proven true) and that funding the Postal Service will expand mail-in voting, which he doesn't want.

Another reason Trump won in 2016: Black and Hispanic Americans didn't come out to vote in great enough numbers to counter the White vote for Trump.

Obama is quickly describing the general political consensus of how Trump won, White Americans, especially in the Midwest, who voted for Obama in 2012 turned to Trump over frustration their lives are getting better.

In his last big speech before he left office, this was his main message, too.

Transactional is also a major critique of the Trump administration foreign policy. Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives last winter for trying to force Ukraine to help his reelection in exchange for military aid from the U.S.

As the pandemic shut down America in March, President Trump tried to cast the Obama administration's handling of such outbreaks as failures. Ultimately, The Fix's JM Rieger reminds us, the Ebola outbreak resulted in 11 cases and two deaths in the U.S. Trump has since dropped this line.

Could this be an attempt to subtly reshape how Democrats message Harris's time as a prosecutor in California and as that state's attorney general? Some Americans, especially some Black Americans, are wary of her career before coming to the U.S. Senate focused on putting people behind bars.

Trump's response to this speech, FWIW: "Somebody please explain to @MichelleObama that Donald J. Trump would not be here, in the beautiful White House, if it weren’t for the job done by your husband, Barack Obama,” Trump tweeted. “Biden was merely an afterthought, a good reason for that very late & unenthusiastic endorsement."

Most recently, some self-inflicted wounds regarding one of the most prominent voting blocs for Democrats: He asked a Black reporter if he was a "junkie," and said "unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly different attitudes about different things." And he also said that if you're voting for Trump and Black, "you ain't Black."

I think the main purpose of this speech was for one of the most popular Democratic politicians in the country to sprinkle the Obama dust on Biden. Even though polls show Biden leading Trump, polls also show that Biden voters are slightly less enthusiastic about his candidacy than Trump voters.

Trump recently said, with all the evidence to the contrary, that Biden is "against God."

One of the most prominent Americans is acknowledging her voice has limits, because of her politics, but also because of her race.

So many of you asked whether Biden might pick Michelle Obama as his running mate. This is one prominent reason why he didn't.

I do think Michelle Obama's "go high" was interpreted by some in the party as a call to avoid confronting Trump, to ignore him.

Maybe it's four years of Trump, or maybe it's what she's meant all along, but Obama is saying tonight: Go after him.

In his extraordinary rebuke of Trump this summer, former Trump defense secretary Jim Mattis accused Trump of being the first president in his lifetime to try to divide rather than unite Americans.

Black voters in particular did not show up in high enough numbers to help Democrats in 2016 overcome White voters coming out for Trump. Michelle Obama, and the entire Democratic apparatus, is acutely aware of how they can't let that happen again.

Already, there are undercurrents of the singular issue dominating Americans' lives, coronavirus, in Michelle Obama's speech. It's about to get even more direct.

Actually, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that 54 percent of registered voters say they are following the election “very closely,” a high water mark for polls at a similar point in campaigns over the past 20 years.

And, yes, she will reference that famous line in this speech, too, as she's attacking Trump.