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.


Overview: Biden to address nation on pandemic, Trump ramps up attacks on GOP leaders

Following a briefing with his COVID-19 advisory team on Tuesday, Biden is expected to continue his criticism of the Trump administration in afternoon remarks on the coronavirus pandemic from Wilmington, Delaware, and home in on what his team has characterized as the lagging pace of vaccine distribution.

According to a transition official, Biden will provide an update on the current state of the pandemic and give a dire prediction that, tragically, infection and death rates will rise in the coming weeks. Biden is also expected to address the current administration falling short on its pace for vaccinations, the official said, as well as his plan to get 100 million vaccinations in 100 days.

Biden on Monday slammed the Trump administration for, he said, leaving security agencies "hollowed out" and for creating "roadblocks" for his transition team seeking access to key national security information -- a comment that acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller has pushed back on, saying the Biden team has already been given more interviews and documents than they initially requested.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, on Tuesday morning are slated to receive their first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in Washington, D.C., where Harris may also comment on the incoming administration's vaccine distribution plans.

Trump, meanwhile, continued to contest the election on Twitter Tuesday morning -- with three weeks until Biden's inauguration -- criticizing Republican leadership as "pathetic," saying they "only want the path of least resistance" and "only know how to lose." He also attacked Republican lawmakers over their handling of the defensing funding bill as the Senate is expected to override Trump's presidential veto for the first time in his presidency by the end of the week.

After Trump changed course on Sunday and signed the coronavirus relief and government funding bill to avert a shutdown -- though not in time to prevent unemployment benefits to millions of Americans from lapsing -- the House of Representatives on Monday approved Trump's call to increase the coronavirus relief payments from $600 to $2,000.

But its fate in the Senate is uncertain. Senate Majority Leader McConnell has declined to reveal how he will proceed or even whether he’ll bring the proposal up for a vote. Democrats are seizing the opportunity to force Republicans into a difficult position -- either backing or defying Trump.

-ABC News' Molly Nagle and Ben Gittleson