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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Overview: Trump signs pandemic relief after unemployment aid lapses, $2000 checks go to House vote
After days of opposition and hours before the federal government was going to shut down, Trump signed a $2.3 trillion bill into law Sunday night to avert a government shutdown and extend $900 billion in coronavirus pandemic relief -- but millions of American will be impacted by his delay.
Trump’s Sunday night signature came after two critical unemployment programs lapsed over the weekend, leaving roughly 14 million Americans who have relied on the income without a week of benefits during the holiday season. While the current bill shells out $600 direct payments for most Americans, Trump is breaking from his party by continuing his push to bring that amount to $2,000.
In a Sunday night statement announcing he had signed the bill, Trump -- who has sat on the sidelines of negotiations for months -- also called on Congress to make more revisions to cut down excess spending, saying "wasteful items need to be removed" from the bill and that he would send back a “redlined” version.
The move is forcing Senate Republicans, many who did not support more direct payments, to say whether they stand with Trump on increasing payments and revisiting the bill’s language or by their previous positions.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday is bringing a vote on a stand-alone bill to increase economic impact payments to $2,000 to the House floor, and while it’s expected to pass the House, it’s unclear whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will take up the measure in the Senate.
The president has no public events on his schedule as he continues his holiday from Mar-a-Lago, and threatens, via Twitter, a challenge to the counting of the Electoral College vote in Congress on Jan. 6.
Biden, meanwhile, is pressing forward with his transition with less than a month until his inauguration. The president-elect is slated to meet with members of his national security and foreign policy agency review teams on Monday and deliver afternoon remarks on their "findings and the key challenges his administration will inherit" from Wilmington, Delaware.
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