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.


House passes bill to boost stimulus checks to $2,000, fate uncertain in Senate

The House narrowly passed a bill that would increase the amount of money Americans receive in a second round of pandemic relief stimulus payments to $2,000, up from $600.

The final vote tally was 275-134, receiving the two-thirds majority it required under the expedited vote. There were 44 Republicans who voted with Democrats.

Even though Trump supports the measure, a number of Republicans voted against the bill. Its fate remains uncertain in the Senate.

The House vote comes one day after Trump signed the $2.3 trillion spending and COVID-19 relief bill, which included $600 stimulus checks for Americans who make $75,000 or less. Trump initially threatened to hold up the bill last week and said it was a "disgrace." He spent the next several days calling on Congress to pass a bill that included $2,000 stimulus checks instead.

Democrats took up Trump's offer last week and attempted to pass a bill that would send Americans $2,000 checks via unanimous consent but that attempt failed over Republican objections. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowed to bring the bill to the floor for a full recorded vote on Monday.

Even though the bill has now cleared the House, at this point it's unclear if the Republican-led Senate will bring the bill to the floor for a vote. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made no promises in his statement Sunday when he commended the president for finally signing the COVID-19 relief bill into law.

Pelosi called on Trump to put more pressure on his party to back the payments.

"Every Republican vote against this bill is a vote to deny the financial hardship that families face and to deny the American people the relief they need," she said in a statement released Sunday.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday that he would try to pass the legislation in the Senate.

"No Democrats will object. Will Senate Republicans?" he tweeted.

-ABC News' Mariam Khan