Pelosi elected to 4th term as House speaker

She’s the third speaker in the last 25 years to win with less than 218 votes.

President Donald Trump is slated to hand over control of the White House to President-elect Joe Biden in 17 days.


Trump asks Georgia secretary of state to 'find' enough votes to win state

In a stunning hour-long phone call, President Donald Trump ranted about the election and asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" exactly enough votes to win the Peach State.

The call, originally published by the Washington Post, starts with the president spending about 12 minutes uninterrupted decrying his electoral loss, which he claimed multiple times during the call was “impossible,” and spewing election conspiracy theories that the secretary of state’s office and local election officials have repeatedly disputed and debunked.

"All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state and flipping the state is a great testament to our country ..." Trump reportedly told Raffensperger during the call.

In an extraordinary exchange, the president tells Raffensperger there would be “nothing wrong” if the secretary “recalculated” the results of the election, leading to Raffensperger pushing back.

“Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong.” Raffensperger said.

"It's just not possible to have lost Georgia. When I heard it was close, I said there's no way," Trump stated on the call.

Despite the president’s persistence, the secretary maintained the reported vote count was accurate.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows also spoke at times during the call, and Ryan Germany, the general counsel in Raffensperger’s office, did as well.

-ABC News' Quinn Scanlan


Pelosi re-elected House speaker

The House of Representatives has narrowly reelected Nancy Pelosi as speaker, after the California Democrat won the support of 216 members. The result was announced with fanfare at 4:49 p.m. by House Clerk Cheryl Johnson, who declared Pelosi “duly elected” speaker at 4:50 p.m.

Pelosi stood at the Democratic leadership desk as her colleagues applauded her historic achievement.

There were 427 members who participated in the vote.

At 4:25 p.m., California Democrat Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, who has battled health problems for the past several years and nearly died from pneumonia after a fall last spring, cast the 216th vote for Pelosi –- with Democrats in the chamber erupting in applause.

Pelosi, whose caucus ranks have dwindled to just 222 voting members in the 117th Congress, lost the support of five members.

Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, voted for Sen. Tammy Duckworth. Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Penn., voted for Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries. Three other Democratic women -- Reps. Abigail Spanberger, Elissa Slotkin and Mikie Sherrill -- all voted present. If they had voted for any person on the planet, it would have increased the threshold Pelosi needed to secure the speaker’s gavel.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, won unanimous support from the Republican conference -- garnering 209 votes on the floor.

This will be Pelosi’s 4th (non-consecutive) term as speaker. She’s also the third speaker in the last 25 years to win with less than 218 votes, next to Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan.

Pelosi will speak from the speaker’s chair shortly, after McCarthy hands her the gavel.

-ABC News' John Parkinson, Mariam Khan and Benjamin Siegel


In rare statement, Paul Ryan says 'Joe Biden’s victory is entirely legitimate'

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan has emerged from retirement with a rare statement to weigh in on the controversy surrounding the certification of the electoral college votes this week, emphasizing that “voters determine the president” while warning “this self-governance cannot sustain itself if the whims of Congress replace the will of the people.”

“Efforts to reject the votes of the Electoral College and sow doubt about Joe Biden’s victory strike at the foundation of our republic,” Ryan noted. “It is difficult to conceive of a more anti-democratic and anti-conservative act than a federal intervention to overturn the results of state-certified elections and disenfranchise millions of Americans.”

Ryan added that the Trump campaign had “ample opportunity” to challenge the results but failed “from lack of evidence.”

"The legal process was exhausted, and the results were decisively confirmed. The Department of Justice, too, found no basis for overturning the result. If states wish to reform their processes for future elections, that is their prerogative. But Joe Biden’s victory is entirely legitimate.”

-ABC News' John Parkinson



Bipartisan group of senators: 'It is time to move forward'

From the bipartisan group who hammered out the COVID relief compromise, an appeal to senators to accept the Electoral College results, writing in a statement, " It is time to move forward."

Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Susan Collins, R-Maine, Mark Warner, D-Va., Bill Cassidy, R-La., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Angus King, I-Maine, Mitt Romney, R-Utah, Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., issued the following statement on the upcoming Congressional certification of the 2020 Presidential election results:

"The 2020 election is over. All challenges through recounts and appeals have been exhausted. At this point, further attempts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 Presidential election are contrary to the clearly expressed will of the American people and only serve to undermine Americans' confidence in the already determined election results. The voters have spoken, and Congress must now fulfill its responsibility to certify the election results. In two weeks, we will begin working with our colleagues and the new Administration on bipartisan, common sense solutions to the enormous challenges facing our country. It is time to move forward."

-ABC News' Trish Turner


Biden speaks on national security, says his team isn't receiving proper transition

Biden took aim at Trump in remarks following a briefing on national security and foreign policy, slamming the current administration for failing to fully cooperate with his agency review teams during the transition -- which Biden argued could leave the country vulnerable.

While commending his own agency review teams for their hard work amid a transition that was already made more challenging by COVID-19, Biden pointedly called out Department of Defense and White House Office of Budget and Management political appointees for, he said, not cooperating for a smooth transition.

"And the truth is many of the agencies that are critical to our security have incurred enormous damage. Many of them have been hollowed out in personnel, capacity and in morale," Biden added.

Later in his remarks, Biden stressed the need for cooperation during the transition, noting that it is a matter of national security to ensure there are no gaps that adversaries can seek to exploit when he takes office.


"We need full visibility into the budget planning under way at the Defense Department and other agencies in order to avoid any window of confusion or catch-up that our adversaries may try to exploit," Biden said. "Right now, we just aren't getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. It's nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility."

Biden said other "Day One" challenges discussed in the briefing will draw on the skill sets of the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency as they aim to "clean up the humanitarian disaster that the Trump administration has systematically created on our Southern border."

"We will institute humane and orderly responses. That means rebuilding the capacity we need to safely and quickly process asylum seekers, without creating near-term crises in the midst of this deadly pandemic," Biden said.

As he exited the stage at the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden was asked if he supports the measure for $2,000 direct payments to Americans for COVID-19 relief, which the House will soon vote on. He responded with one word: "Yes."

-ABC News' Molly Nagle, Sarah Kolinovsky and Beatrice Peterson