Michigan state legislature closes offices due to 'credible threats of violence'
Law enforcement recommended the Michigan legislature close its offices.
President Donald Trump is slated to hand over control of the White House to President-elect Joe Biden in 39 days.
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Doug Emhoff, Twitter defend Jill Biden following WSJ op-ed
Twitter users, including Doug Emhoff, came to Jill Biden's defense following a Wall Street Journal op-ed that called on the incoming first lady to drop the honorific "Dr." from her name as she enters the White House.
"Madame First Lady -- Mrs. Biden -- Jill -- kiddo," essayist Joseph Epstein begins his op-ed, published online Friday evening.
“Any chance you might drop the 'Dr.' before your name?" Epstein continues. "'Dr. Jill Biden' sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic."
Biden earned her Doctorate in Education from the University of Delaware in 2007.
Unsurprisingly, the op-ed caused a stir on Twitter, with many -- including the incoming second gentleman -- accusing the writer of misogyny.
“Dr. Biden earned her degrees through hard work and pure grit," Emhoff tweeted Saturday. "She is an inspiration to me, to her students, and to Americans across this country. This story would never have been written about a man."
"Dr. Jill Biden" was trending on Twitter Saturday afternoon, and 2020 Guggenheim Fellow Sarah Parcak encouraged women who earned a Ph.D. to consider adding “Dr.” to their Twitter name "in solidarity with Dr. Jill Biden and to stand in solidarity against that sexist trash op-ed about her in the WSJ."
Biden uses the name "Dr. Jill Biden" and the handle @DrBiden on Twitter. She has not publicly responded to the op-ed.
Note: The AP Stylebook says to use "Dr." on first formal reference for individuals who hold select medical degrees, such as doctor of medicine and doctor of optometry. Many news organizations use this standard.
-ABC News' Molly Nagle contributed to this report
Trump-appointed judge in Wisconsin rejects another Trump election challenge
While the U.S. Supreme Court has twice refused to hear pro-Trump challenges to the 2020 elections, a federal judge in Wisconsin on Saturday joined the chorus of rulings against Trump in his effort to use the courts to invalidate Biden’s victory.
“This Court has allowed plaintiff the chance to make his case and he has lost on the merits,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge Brett H. Ludwig, a Trump appointee. Ludwig noted that the president had asked “that the Rule of Law be followed,” and he declared in response: “It has been.”
The ruling comes just one day after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider an election challenge brought by the Texas attorney general contesting the way elections were run in four states, including Wisconsin. Trump had called that case “the big one,” because he thought it held the best hopes for him of re-litigating the 2020 contest in court.
This latest ruling marks nearly 50 losses for the president in cases brought by him and his supporters since election day. In Wisconsin, where Biden won by more than 20,000 votes, Trump asked for 221,000 absentee and mail-in ballots to be excluded on the grounds they were collected in ways not laid out by the state legislature. And the president argued that the legislature should be afforded the chance to select an alternate slate of electors.
Ludwig’s 23-page opinion gave wide latitude to Trump -- finding that the president had standing to file his election challenge and was not too late to raise his concerns about the way the election was conducted. But the outcome of the case was the same as rulings in other battleground states -- that Biden’s victory was attained legally and should not be thrown to a legislature to upend.
The president, Ludwig wrote, “has not proved” that state election officials violated his rights. “To the contrary, the record shows Wisconsin’s Presidential Electors are being determined in the very manner directed by the Legislature, as required by Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.”
Ludwig further noted that if he followed the demands set out in Trump’s lawsuit, “any disappointed loser in a Presidential election, able to hire a team of clever lawyers, could flag claimed deviations from the election rules and cast doubt on the election results. This would risk turning every Presidential election into a federal court lawsuit over the Electors Clause.”
The Trump campaign has not yet responded to requests for comment.
At the moment the federal ruling was handed down, the Wisconsin Supreme Court was hearing arguments on a separate challenge to a recount of votes in the state, which had failed in a lower court.
-ABC News' Matthew Mosk and Alex Hosenball
Trump supporters rally in DC
A day after the U.S. Supreme Court denied Texas' challenge to Biden's 2020 presidential election victory, Trump supporters gathered in Washington, D.C. to protest alleged voter fraud.
The "March for Trump" event, which started at noon on Saturday, includes a march to the U.S. Supreme Court to "demand transparency and protect election integrity," according to promotional materials.
Former Trump administration national security adviser Mike Flynn was among those in attendance.
Trump tweeted Saturday morning that he just found out about the rally and said "I'll be seeing them."
On Friday, the Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit brought by the state of Texas and Republican allies of Trump to throw out millions of votes in four states and overturn Biden's victory. In dismissing the case, the court said Texas had no "cognizable interest" in how Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia conduct their own elections.
The rally also comes as members of the Electoral College will meet Monday to formally cast their votes for president.
FDA Commissioner Hahn denies reports he was threatened with firing
FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn on Saturday pushed back on reports that he was threatened with firing.
Sources familiar with the matter told ABC News that in a Friday phone call, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows suggested to Hahn that his job could be on the line if his agency didn’t authorize emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by the end of the day.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was authorized by the FDA late Friday.
“Representations in the press that I was threatened to be fired if we didn’t get it done by a certain date is inaccurate,” Hahn told reporters on a Saturday morning call.
Hahn said Saturday that the vaccine was authorized late Friday because science and data determined it was ready, not because of “any other external pressure” and that he would “absolutely” take the vaccine.
-ABC News' Emily Shapiro, Katherine Faulders, John Santucci and Anne Flaherty
Retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin is Biden's pick for defense secretary: Sources
President-elect Joe Biden is expected to name retired four-star Army Gen. Lloyd Austin as his choice to lead the Defense Department, four sources familiar with Biden's plans told ABC News.
If confirmed, Austin would be the first Black defense secretary in American history.
Austin, the former commander of U.S. Central Command -- with jurisdiction over military activities in the Middle East -- retired in 2016 after more than 40 years of military service, including a stint leading U.S. forces in Iraq and the campaign against the Islamic State.
Austin will need a waiver from Congress to lead the Pentagon, given that he is less than seven years from active duty. Congress granted retired Marine Corps Gen. Jim Mattis the same waiver in 2017 to allow him to serve as President Donald Trump's first defense secretary.
-ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz, Benjamin Siegel, Katherine Faulders, John Santucci and Luis Martinez