Pelosi elected to 4th term as House speaker

Roger Stone told ABC News he saw Trump "in passing" Sunday night at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, and thanked the president in person for pardoning him last week.

"My wife and I both had the opportunity to thank the president personally for righting the injustice of my conviction in a soviet-style show trial, which featured the epic bias of the judge who withheld exculpatory evidence from my defense, misconduct by the jury forewoman and substantial misconduct by the prosecutors," Stone told ABC News Monday.

"Donald Trump is the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln," he added.

Stone told ABC News he and his wife, Nydia Stone, were the guests of Newsmax publisher Christopher Ruddy for the club's buffet dinner, where they ran into Trump, who was dining with family.

"The president decided to dine at the club with his son Donald Trump Jr., Kimberley Guilfoil, Eric Trump and his wife Lara Trump. Because of his decision to sign the stimulus bill, it was unclear whether the president would dine at the club, which he normally does on Sunday nights when he is visiting Mar-A-Lago," Stone said.

The White House declined to comment to ABC News on the matter.

Because the club rules prohibit photographs of diners for privacy reasons, the Stones declined to provide a photo. However, ABC News reached a source who was present in a dining room of about 100 diners who provided a photo of Trump of greeting Stone with a pat on the shoulder. 

Stone, a decades-long friend and former campaign adviser to Trump, was convicted on a seven-count indictment of obstructing justice, witness tampering and multiple counts of lying to Congress in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election in November 2019. 

In July, days before the veteran GOP operative was scheduled to report to a federal penitentiary in Georgia, Trump commuted Stone's 40-month prison sentence. 

Trump's full presidential pardon, issued Dec. 23, nullifies Stone's conviction entirely.

-ABC News' Ali Dukakis

Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are participating in a virtual briefing with expert members of their national security and foreign policy agency review teams from the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware, and taking the opportunity to draw stark contrasts between Trump's "America First" policy and their incoming White House.

At the top of the briefing, Biden praised the team for their work despite delays in the transition prompted by the Trump administration refusing to recognize Biden's ascertainment as the president-elect for more than two weeks.

"You’ve done it all under incredibly difficult circumstances, dealing with the COVID protocols, delays, delays in the ascertainments, and in a few cases obstruction from the current leadership," Biden said, thanking the group before taking aim at Trump's "go-it-alone approach" of the past four years.

“The truth is, the challenges we face today can't be solved by any one country acting alone. They demand American leadership. They demand cooperation with our allies and our partners. So I’m looking forward to hearing your assessments about the greatest challenges we may inherit and as we restore the principle of American leadership on the global stage -- which we have to and will do," Biden added.

After the briefing, Biden is slated to deliver afternoon remarks on the group's findings.

-ABC News' Molly Nagle

Dr. Celine Gounder, a member of Biden’s COVID-19 task force, said Monday morning there is "no question" the country will see a post-holiday surge of coronavirus cases and, to help offset the worsening pandemic, confirmed Biden will invoke the Defense Production Act once in office to increase vaccine supply.

Gounder criticized the Trump administration for moving too slowly on vaccine distribution and said Biden will force manufacturers to step up by invoking the Defense Production Act, which gives the president the power to direct civilian businesses to help meet orders for products necessary for national defense.

“In the last two weeks, we basically averaged about a million doses of vaccine administered per week. We need to be getting to a million doses per day if we're going to reach the president-elect's target of 100 million doses in 100 days," Gounder said. She went on to explain that invoking the act is "to make sure that the personal protective equipment, the test capacity and the raw materials for the vaccines are produced in adequate supply so that those aren't limiting steps in all of this.”

Gounder also claimed the country will see "a major increase" in testing as well as in genetic surveillance to track new variants of the virus with the incoming administration.

-ABC News’ Brian Hartman

Trump is slated to return to Georgia in one week for a campaign rally on the eve of the Jan. 5 runoff races that are set to determine which party holds power in the U.S. Senate. 

Sitting GOP Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are facing off against Democratic contenders Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, respectively, as early voting continues across the state Monday. 

Earlier this month Trump stumped for Loeffler and Perdue at his first rally since the November election. There, he assaulted the integrity of Georgia's vote but encouraged GOP turnout in the wake of Biden becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since 1992. Democrats are now hoping to cement its status as a swing state.

Biden, too, has stopped in Georgia since the presidential election to campaign for Warnock and Ossoff as the promise of passing the big ticket legislation he’s hoping for hangs on their races. If Democrats pick up both seats, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will have the power to settle tie-breaker votes in Congress' upper chamber.