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.


Trump boasts about accomplishments in Twitter video

In a previously recorded campaign-style video posted to Twitter Thursday, President Donald Trump touted what he views as his many presidential accomplishments: producing COVID-19 vaccines, repairing the economy and stopping "endless foreign wars" in the Middle East.

When it comes to vaccines, Trump said, "Our most vulnerable citizens are already receiving the vaccine and millions of doses are quickly being shipped all across our country."
The president promised that "by early next year the vaccine will be available to every American."

The Trump administration had promised that 20 million people would be vaccinated by the end of the year. As of Wednesday morning, 2,794,588 Americans had received vaccine doses and 12.4 million doses had been distributed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Trump also boasted about the economy, saying, "Through the Paycheck Protection Program, we saved or supported more than 51 million American jobs, and we're doing numbers now like nobody's ever seen before, including having the highest stock market in the history of the world."

"We have slashed the unemployment rate from 14.7%, all the way down to 6.7%," Trump said. "Our economy is growing at the most rapid rate ever recorded. ... Nobody can compete with us in terms of going down less, and going up by far the fastest and the best. Whenever America's challenged, we always rise to the occasion."

Many economists, however, have argued that the economy is rebounding in a K-shape, as opposed to a V-shape, with the rich getting richer and the working class still struggling.

The president also touched on foreign affairs.

"We have secured our borders and paused immigration to protect American workers," Trump said. "And after years of endless foreign wars we are signing historic peace deals in the Middle East. It's all ending in the Middle East. We have to hope it keeps going. It's so easy if you know what you're doing."

While Trump has successfully pushed to normalize relations between Israel and many Middle Eastern countries, it's not accurate to say they are "peace deals" and they have come at the expense of Palestinians and aligned the countries against Iran. Iran, and its nuclear ambitions, continues to be a thorn in America's side. Trump has drawn down forces from Afghanistan and Iraq, but promised negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban fell apart and ISIS and al-Qaida affiliates are taking advantage of the insecurity in Syria, Northern Africa and elsewhere.

ABC News' Elizabeth Thomas contributed to this report.