sitting vice president. Thus, Time magazine wrote in 1925, during the tenure of Vice President Charles G. Dawes, "once in four years the Vice President can make a little speech, and then he is done. For four years he then has to sit in the seat of the silent, attending to speeches ponderous or otherwise, of deliberation or humor." President of impeachment trials In their capacity as president of the Senate, the vice president may preside over most impeachment trials of federal officers, although the Constitution does not specifically require it. However, whenever the president of the United States is on trial, the Constitution requires that the chief justice of the United States must preside. This stipulation was designed to avoid the possible conflict of interest in having the vice president preside over the trial for the removal of the one official standing between them and the presidency. In contrast, it is not stipulated which federal official presides when the vice president is tried; thus leaving it unclear whether an impeached vice president could, as President of the Senate, preside at his or her own impeachment trial. The Constitution is silent on the issue. President of electoral vote counts The Twelfth Amendment provides that the vice president, in their capacity as the president of the Senate, receives the Electoral College votes, and then, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, opens the sealed votes. The votes are counted during a joint session of Congress as prescribed by the Electoral Count Act, which also specifies that the president of the Senate presides over the joint session. The next such joint session will next take place following the 2024 presidential election, on January 6, 2025 (unless Congress sets a different date by law). In this capacity, four vice presidents have been able to announce their own election to the presidency: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, and George H. W. Bush. Conversely, John C. Breckinridge, in 1861, Richard Nixon, in 1961, and Al Gore, in 2001, all had to announce their opponent's election. In 1969, Vice President Hubert Humphrey would have done so as well, following his 1968 loss to Richard Nixon; however, on the date of the congressional joint session, Humphrey was in Norway attending the funeral of Trygve Lie, the first elected Secretary-General of the United Nations. The president pro tempore, Richard Russell, presided in his