Trump-Biden transition updates: At least 20 arrested, 1 stabbed at DC protests

In the days since Biden was projected as the president-elect, Trump has remained out of sight except for trips to his Virginia golf course. But the president is working the phones with aides and allies demanding they save his presidency, multiple sources told ABC News.

At the same time, sources told ABC News the president wants every legal option exhausted, even though privately aides and members of the first family admit there is no path forward at this point.

While some top aides have cautiously approached the president to tell him it may be time to come to terms with the fact that he has lost the election, sources said they don't expect Trump to publicly concede he lost this race fairly, predicting he will continue to sow division between his supporters and Biden by trumpeting a false claim that the president-elect's victory was "fraudulent" and "stolen" from Trump.

After Election Day, Trump's campaign quickly shifted its focus to fighting the results and searching for evidence of widespread voter fraud to defend the president's baseless claims that the election was being stolen from him.

But according to multiple sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, the team's post-election efforts have run into some of the same problems that plagued them down the final stretch of the campaign: money woes and mismanagement.

-ABC News' John Santucci, Katherine Faulders and Will Steakin

The Pennsylvania Department of State announced Tuesday evening that "approximately 10,000 mail ballots" were received from the time polls closed last week through the Friday 5 p.m. deadline by which they needed to arrive in order to be counted.

These are the ballots at the center of the Trump campaign lawsuit filed prior to Election Day, which seeks to overturn a September Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision allowing the ballots to arrive up to three days after Election Day, provided they were postmarked before the polls closed.

Though that case may have ramifications for local races and future elections, it has been rendered moot in the presidential contest given Biden's current 45,673 advantage over Trump in the Keystone State. Even if all 10,000 ballots came in for Trump, he'd still trail Biden outside of the automatic recount threshold of ~34,000. The Trump campaign would also be in the awkward position of suddenly trying to argue for their inclusion following weeks of demands that they be excluded.

The state also noted a provisional ballot count of 94,000 on Election Day -- a backtrack from an earlier 101,000+ number it gave ABC News a few days ago -- of which only about 17,000 have been approved and counted thus far; and another 27,650 military and overseas votes, which had until Tuesday to arrive. None of the outstanding ballots of either type are expected to make a significant dent into Biden's margin.

-ABC News' Adam Kelsey

After meeting GOP senators on Capitol Hill Tuesday afternoon, Vice President Mike Pence tweeted that he told them: “We’ll Keep Fighting until every LEGAL Vote for President @realDonaldTrump is counted.”

Pence also tweeted he would be in Georgia next week, apparently to campaign for the two GOP Senate candidates facing runoffs there.

His office confirmed later that he'll campaign there on Nov. 20.

Meanwhile, Pence’s office announced he would travel to the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., on Friday to speak at a meeting of the Council for National Policy, a conservative group. It’s the latest example of Pence carrying on with work while the president remains out of sight.

-ABC News' Ben Gittleson and Jordyn Phelps

Before taking questions on his transition, Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris focused on the Affordable Care Act in remarks Tuesday afternoon, making a point to hit the issue the same day the Supreme Court was hearing arguments for the Trump administration's efforts to strike down the law. 

Speaking after Harris’ introduction, Biden slammed Republicans for trying to take away health care coverage for people after failing to have their own plans approved twice before -- and doing so this time as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.  

“This case represents the latest attempt by the far-right ideologues to do what they’ve been -- repeatedly failed to do for a long time in the courts, in the Congress, in the court of public opinion, over the last decade, to eliminate the entirety of the Affordable Care Act,” he said.  

Biden urged the Court not to “subvert” the will of the American people, casting health care as not a “partisan” issue, but rather one of “life and death.” 

Harris spoke before Biden and focused on the negative impact that the loss of ACA would have on women and people of color.

“Getting rid of the Affordable Care Act will take us backward to a time when people could charge a woman more for her healthcare than they could charge a man simply because she's a woman," Harris said, adding, "Communities of color would be hit particularly hard -- Black, Asian, Hispanic and Native American, because they are at a greater risk of pre-existing conditions."

-ABC News' Molly Nagle