Biden win certified by Congress — After one of the darkest days in the recent history of the United States — marked by a violent mob storming the U.S. Capitol urged on by President Donald Trump — Congress got back to business and certified President-elect Joe Biden's win at around 3:30 a.m. Images from the fanatical attack on the Capitol, which resulted in four deaths, will embarrass the nation for decades. But once law enforcement finally restored order, the peaceful transfer of power continued. And it featured remarkable rebukes of Trump from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), among others. Vice President Mike Pence also essentially rebuked the president and performed his ceremonial duties. Wall Street blew off the attack in DC and rallied hard on hopes for bigger fiscal stimulus after Democrats secured a Senate majority with two wins in Georgia. Trump promises to leave peacefully — Via tweets from Dan Scavino for Trump after the certification: "Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th … "I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it's only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!" The main question now, for markets and the nation , is whether the attacks were the last gasp of conspiracy theory fueled Trump supporters or the start of wider unrest around the country. MM's bet is on the former, especially after the Scavino tweets. But there are no guarantees. Talk of impeaching and removing Trump immediately circulated around DC. So did whispers of Cabinet members attempting to remove the president using the 25th amendment. Neither are likely to happen. And Trump, hunkered down in a darkened White House, got kicked off Twitter for at least 12 hours as well as having other social media accounts blocked. For now the hope among investors and top Wall Street executives (as well as the broader business community) is that the worst of the chaos is over and a Democratic Washington will inject trillions of dollars more in fiscal stimulus into the economy and Biden will usher in a calmer era of governance. Fears of higher taxes and tougher regulations are largely on hold for now. Wall Street gets bullish — Via Goldman Sachs: "We have revised our forecasts to reflect the results of the Georgia elections. With control of the Senate by a narrow margin, Democrats are likely to pass further fiscal stimulus in Q1 that we expect to total about $750bn, including $300bn in stimulus checks. … "However, discouraging news on the virus front—including the slow pace of vaccination and the emergence of more infectious virus strains—suggests that the spending boost from stimulus will be more lagged than usual." Pantheon's Ian Shepherdson with a significant caveat: "Everything has changed in Washington after the Democrats won the Georgia Senate runoff elections, except the need to find 60 votes for fiscal measures which can't be passed via reconciliation." David Bahnsen, founder of the Bahnsen Group, emails : "It has been my rather unpopular thesis for a while that there would not be huge stock market implications one way or the other to a 50-50 tie in the Senate, because it actually did not mean 'Democrat control of the Senate' the way too many have believed. … [E]xtreme leftist legislative victories are not going to come so easy, and therefore it becomes much less obvious how that is priced into the stock market." GOOD THURSDAY MORNING — It really does seem to be over. But it won't be REALLY over until Trump actually speaks to the nation and says what was in the tweet. Email me on bwhite@politico.com and follow me on Twitter @morningmoneyben. Email Aubree Eliza Weaver on aweaver@politico.com and follow her on Twitter @AubreeEWeaver. |
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