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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Biden takes aim at Trump at briefing with experts on national security and foreign policy

Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are participating in a virtual briefing with expert members of their national security and foreign policy agency review teams from the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware, and taking the opportunity to draw stark contrasts between Trump's "America First" policy and their incoming White House.


At the top of the briefing, Biden praised the team for their work despite delays in the transition prompted by the Trump administration refusing to recognize Biden's ascertainment as the president-elect for more than two weeks.

"You’ve done it all under incredibly difficult circumstances, dealing with the COVID protocols, delays, delays in the ascertainments, and in a few cases obstruction from the current leadership," Biden said, thanking the group before taking aim at Trump's "go-it-alone approach" of the past four years.

“The truth is, the challenges we face today can't be solved by any one country acting alone. They demand American leadership. They demand cooperation with our allies and our partners. So I’m looking forward to hearing your assessments about the greatest challenges we may inherit and as we restore the principle of American leadership on the global stage -- which we have to and will do," Biden added.

After the briefing, Biden is slated to deliver afternoon remarks on the group's findings.

-ABC News' Molly Nagle


Biden task force member says Biden will use Defense Production Act to increase vaccine supply

Dr. Celine Gounder, a member of Biden’s COVID-19 task force, said Monday morning there is "no question" the country will see a post-holiday surge of coronavirus cases and, to help offset the worsening pandemic, confirmed Biden will invoke the Defense Production Act once in office to increase vaccine supply.

Gounder criticized the Trump administration for moving too slowly on vaccine distribution and said Biden will force manufacturers to step up by invoking the Defense Production Act, which gives the president the power to direct civilian businesses to help meet orders for products necessary for national defense.


“In the last two weeks, we basically averaged about a million doses of vaccine administered per week. We need to be getting to a million doses per day if we're going to reach the president-elect's target of 100 million doses in 100 days," Gounder said. She went on to explain that invoking the act is "to make sure that the personal protective equipment, the test capacity and the raw materials for the vaccines are produced in adequate supply so that those aren't limiting steps in all of this.”

Gounder also claimed the country will see "a major increase" in testing as well as in genetic surveillance to track new variants of the virus with the incoming administration.

-ABC News’ Brian Hartman


Trump to campaign in Georgia on eve of Senate runoff elections

Trump is slated to return to Georgia in one week for a campaign rally on the eve of the Jan. 5 runoff races that are set to determine which party holds power in the U.S. Senate.

Sitting GOP Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are facing off against Democratic contenders Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, respectively, as early voting continues across the state Monday.

Earlier this month Trump stumped for Loeffler and Perdue at his first rally since the November election. There, he assaulted the integrity of Georgia's vote but encouraged GOP turnout in the wake of Biden becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since 1992. Democrats are now hoping to cement its status as a swing state.

Biden, too, has stopped in Georgia since the presidential election to campaign for Warnock and Ossoff as the promise of passing the big ticket legislation he’s hoping for hangs on their races. If Democrats pick up both seats, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will have the power to settle tie-breaker votes in Congress' upper chamber.


Biden transition announces slate of staff for White House Office of Digital Strategy

The Biden-Harris transition team has announced 12 new members of their incoming staff for the Office of Digital Strategy -- which the transition says will be a “robust” team in the Biden White House.

All 12 staffers announced Monday morning previously worked on the Biden-Harris campaign, which relied heavily on digital engagement amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"With much of our lives online, it is critical for this administration’s digital efforts to be inclusive and extensive,” said Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in a joint statement announcing the picks.

-ABC News Molly Nagle


Trump headlines final night rally in Georgia Senate runoffs

Just 16 days before he's set to leave office, President Donald Trump will headline a rally for Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in Dalton, Georgia.

The rally comes on Jan. 4, the night before the two sitting senators face separate Democratic opponents -- Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, respectively -- in two runoffs that could determine control of the Senate. The makeup of the Senate is currently projected to be 50 Republicans and 48 Democrats and left-leaning independents. If Warnock and Ossoff win, pushing the balance to 50-50, the Democrats would control both the House and Senate, due to Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote in the upper chamber.

Dalton is in Georgia's 14th Congressional District, which makes up the northwest corner of the state and is perhaps the state's most conservative district. Its congresswoman-elect, Marjorie Taylor Greene, has supported QAnon conspiracies in the past and has fully embraced, defended and perpetuated Trump's false narrative about the election.

The 14th Congressional District is also doing the worst of the 14 districts in terms of turnout for the runoff, according to Georgia Votes, which is analyzing the secretary of state's data.

Trump made his one and only appearance in Georgia during the runoff campaign on Dec. 5, when he spent nearly two hours ticking off baseless conspiracies about the presidential election and went on a tangent about how he didn't want to come to appear at the rally.

-ABC News' Quinn Scanlan