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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NJ will start vaccinating next week: Gov. Murphy
New Jersey will begin giving its health care workers the COVID-19 vaccine Tuesday morning at University Hospital in Newark, the state's governor said on ABC's "This Week" Sunday.
"The first batch of 76,000, split the majority toward health care workers but a good slug toward our long-term care residents and staff, and then with each ensuing week those are the two top priorities," Gov. Phil Murphy, D-N.J., told "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
"It'll take us a number of weeks as you can imagine to work through the entire populations in both of those groups, but it's gonna be a big day on Tuesday morning in Newark," he added.
Full story here.
- Adia Robinson
Top CISA official stepping down in wake of Krebs firing
Another Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Administration official is stepping down at the end of the week.
Matt Masterson, a top official at CISA, who was instrumental in securing the 2020 election, confirmed on Twitter he's leaving for a position at Stanford University.
Masterson tweeted that he can't wait to work with the staff and students at Stanford.
The news comes after former CISA Director Chris Krebs was fired via tweet by President Donald Trump in November. The president bristled at Krebs' assertion that there was no evidence of fraud in the election.
Bryan Ware, another of Krebs' top lieutenants at the agency, stepped down just before his boss was fired last month.
-ABC News' Luke Barr
Wisconsin Supreme Court says Trump lawsuit 'smacks of racism'
Sparks flew Saturday as justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court questioned Jim Troupis, a lawyer for the Trump campaign who argued that the state should throw out 220,000 votes from Dane and Milwaukee counties.
Justice Jill Karofsky lit into Troupis under 10 minutes into the hearing, accusing the campaign of trying to disenfranchise Black voters.
“In your lawsuit, what you have done here, is you have targeted the vote of almost a quarter of a million people, a quarter of a million people not statewide in Wisconsin, but … in two of our 72 counties, two counties that are targeted because of their diverse populations, because they're urban; I presume because they vote Democratic. This lawsuit, Mr. Troupis, smacks of racism,” Karofsky said.
Troupis and the Trump campaign argued that the court should throw out four categories of votes they said did not follow state statute, including absentee ballots delivered in person at a “Get Out the Vote” event in a park, ballots applied for with a specific mail-in form, ballots missing the address of a signed witness and ballots applied for by “indefinitely confined voters.”
As the hearing continued, Justice Rebecca Dallet once again homed in on the demographic makeup of Milwaukee and Dane counties, noting that the Trump campaign was “not asking … to throw out votes in any other county.” Troupis became defensive, telling the justices that the Biden campaign could have asked for the recount to encompass the whole state.
“You made a statement, as if this was a choice based on criteria that simply are not true,” Troupis said before Dallet jumped on him.
“Who chooses which counties to ask for a recount?” Dallet asked.
Troupis responded “the candidate,” to which Dallet noted the president “had a choice when it came to the recount of which counties. … He chose to only challenge votes in the most urban, non-white, largest counties that voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden.”
-ABC News' Alex Hosenball and Matt Mosk
FDA commissioner, Gov. Phil Murphy discuss COVID-19 vaccine on ABC's 'This Week'
Following authorization of Pfizer's vaccine for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration, Martha Raddatz goes one-on-one with FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn to discuss the next phase of the fight against COVID-19. Then, Raddatz discusses how the vaccine will be distributed with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy.
Plus, for analysis of all the week's political news, including the Texas election lawsuit that was rejected by the Supreme Court and the Biden transition, Gov. Chris Christie, Rahm Emanuel and the Powerhouse Roundtable join Raddatz. See it on "This Week" Sunday.
-ABC News' Adia Robinson
Trump called Pennsylvania Republican House Speaker last week
Trump reached out to Pennsylvania State Speaker of the House Brian Cutler last week asking about the legislature possibly overturning the election as part of his ongoing and apparent pressure campaign to have GOP-controlled legislatures flip results in his favor in battleground states he lost.
Mike Straub, a spokesman for Cutler, confirmed to ABC News reporting in The New York Times that Trump asked what options were available to the legislature on the phone call.
“Cutler made it very clear what power the legislature has and does not have," Straub told ABC News, adding he is "not aware of the President explicitly asking to turnover [sic] the election results."
Straub separately told ABC News that he was not present for the conversations between Cutler and the president, but he was briefed.
"The president wanted to know what options were available to the legislature to address those concerns... Speaker Cutler was very clear in explaining what power the legislature has and does not have within our state Constitution," Straub said. "One remedy the Trump campaign is seeking in a court case involves the legislature seating electors -- Speaker Cutler explained the legislature does not have that authority."
Cutler separately signed onto a resolution last week imploring Pennsylvania Republicans in Congress to officially contest the election results in January. While this has happened in the past, including over the election of George W. Bush, it is highly unlikely to overturn the election results.
The Supreme Court may decide Tuesday to take up a challenge by Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Mike Kelly over the constitutionality of mail-in voting, but legal experts have told ABC News that is a long shot. With Tuesday being the constitutionally mandated "safe-harbor" deadline for electors, all legal challenges are meant to be resolved by the end of the day, thus ensuring the correct electors will cast their votes in statehouses on Dec. 14.
-ABC News' Alex Hosenball