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.
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Texas congressman, Arizona GOP electors sue Pence to choose alternate slate of electors
In another far-fetched effort to overturn the election results, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert and Republican electors in Arizona filed a suit in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas on Sunday, attempting to push Vice President Mike Pence into using alternate electors from the battlegrounds in the congressional certification on Jan. 6.
The lawsuit argues that Pence has the power as the president of the Senate to choose the alternate electors when Congress formalizes the Electoral College vote.
Gohmert argues that alternate electors in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin should be tapped "as a result of the extraordinary events and substantial evidence of election fraud and other illegal conduct before, during and after the 2020 general election in these states."
According to filings, there is no response in the docket from Pence thus far, but U.S. Attorney Stephen Cox and acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen have been served with documents. Judge Jeremy Kernodle is presiding.
-ABC News' Meg Cunningham and Political Director Rick Klein
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
Deb Haaland meets with tribal leaders in 1st meeting as interior secretary-designee
In her first meeting as interior secretary-designee, Deb Haaland hosted a virtual roundtable with tribal leaders on Monday morning, according to the Biden transition team.
Joined by incoming senior adviser to the president and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement Cedric Richmond and incoming director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs Julie Rodriguez, Haaland “reiterated President-elect Joe Biden’s promise to Tribal Nations and indigenous communities to fully honor America’s sacred trust and treaty obligations to Tribal Nations,” the transition said in a readout of the meeting.
“They also discussed how the incoming Biden-Harris Administration will work in coordination with tribal communities who bear disproportionate harm from long-running environmental injustices and are being adversely affected by the impacts of climate change on their homelands,” the readout continued.
Haaland addressed Biden’s ambitious climate policy during the meeting, discussing the incoming administrations plans to address the inequities of global warming and efforts to address climate change, treating it as an economic opportunity. She also pledged to ensure that the Interior Department engages in "early, frequent, and meaningful consultation" with tribal leaders on decisions that affect indigenous communities, according to the readout.
If the Senate confirms her as secretary of the interior, Haaland would be the first Native American to serve in a presidential Cabinet and would be the first Native person to oversee an agency that's played a major role historically in the forced relocation and oppression of Indigenous people.
-ABC News' Molly Nagle
Roger Stone thanked Trump in person for his pardon
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 transition hammers DOD, OMB for lack of cooperation on transition
Biden’s transition held its weekly press briefing Wednesday, hammering home the same messaging the president-elect delivered himself earlier this week on transition delays.
The team took aim at the Department of Defense and Office of Management and Budget for their lack of cooperation in the transition and also previewed some of the “day one” policy actions Biden would take once in office.
Transition spokesperson Yohannes Abraham stressed that not working with career OMB officials is hindering and needlessly delaying the team's work on COVID-19.
“There are also health and economic repercussions to this obstruction. OMB is integral to our federal government efficiently and effectively addressing COVID,” Abraham said. “OMB leadership's refusal to fully cooperate impairs our ability to identify opportunities to maximize the relief going out to Americans during the pandemic.”
When pressed on specific types of obstruction the transition was facing, Abraham added that the DOD has not had a meeting with the transition in 11 days, following DOD’s announcement that meetings would cease over the holidays (the DOD said this was a mutual agreement, which the Biden team has denied). Abraham also said DOD held only three meetings with the Biden team after ascertainment and before the holiday break announcement.
Jen Psaki, Biden's pick for White House press secretary, also spoke of some of the policy actions Biden plans to take immediately when he takes office on Jan. 20.
She announced the Biden administration will issue a memo that halts so-called “midnight rules” from the Trump administration, citing a Department of Labor rule the Trump administration is expected to publish in January that would make it easier for businesses to classify workers as independent contractors to circumvent paying overtime, minimum-wage and other protections.
“In addition to the regulatory freeze memo, President-elect Biden has promised to rescind harmful Trump executive orders, and deliver on our promises and the promises he and Vice president-elect Harris made on the campaign trail, including by reinstating protections for dreamers, rejoining the Paris Climate Accord, or reversing President Trump's environmental rollbacks that have made our air and water dirtier and protecting and strengthening the Affordable Care Act to lower health care costs and expand access to care,” Psaki said.
-ABC News’ Molly Nagle