Trump campaign distances itself from attorney Sidney Powell: Transition updates
The campaign now says she's not a member of the president's legal team.
President-elect Joe Biden is moving forward with transition plans, capping a tumultuous and tension-filled campaign during a historic pandemic against President Donald Trump, who still refuses to concede the election two weeks after Biden was projected as the winner and is taking extraordinary moves to challenge the results.
Running out of legal alternatives to override the election loss, Trump invited Michigan's top Republican state lawmakers to visit the White House on Friday, as he and allies pursue a pressure campaign to overturn results in a state Biden won by more than 150,000 votes.
Despite Trump's roadblocks and his administration refusing to recognize Biden as the president-elect, Biden is forging ahead as he prepares to announce key Cabinet positions.
Though Trump has alleged widespread voter fraud, he and his campaign haven't been able to provide the evidence to substantiate their claims and the majority of their lawsuits have already resulted in unfavorable outcomes.
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Biden calls Pelosi to congratulate her on re-nomination as speaker
Biden called Pelosi to congratulate her on her election as Democratic nominee for speaker of the House, the Biden transition team said in a statement.
During the call, Biden expressed that “he looks forward to working with her and Democratic leadership in the House on a shared agenda to get COVID-19 under control and build our economy back better,” the statement read.
House Democrats officially reelected Pelosi as their nominee for Speaker of the House in an internal vote among the caucus Tuesday. The full House will vote for speaker on Jan 3.
-ABC News' Mariam Khan
Poll finds majority of Republican respondents believe Biden won the election due to voter fraud
A new national poll from Monmouth found that only 18% of Republican-identifying respondents said they feel Biden won the presidential election fair and square, while 70% said he won due to voter fraud.
In contrast, 95% of Democrats said Biden won the election fairly and 4% said he won due to voter fraud. Among independents, 67% said Biden won fairly, while 23% said he won due to voter fraud.
A total of 44% of respondents said they feel very confident the election was conducted fairly and accurately, 16% said they are somewhat confident, while 29% said they are not at all confident.
Fifty-four percent of respondents said they feel the country has enough information to declare a winner of the election, but 44% believe we need more information on the count.
The poll found that more Americans are happier about Trump's loss (34%) than they are Biden's win (25%).
Twenty percent of respondents strongly approve of the way Trump is handling the transition, while 46% strongly disapprove.
-ABC News' Meg Cunningham
Biden speaks of 'brick walls' in the Senate
On a private video call with supporters Wednesday, Biden acknowledged the uphill battle he’s likely to face in the Senate but stressed his fundamental belief that he knows the chamber well enough to achieve consensus.
“We're going to run into some real brick walls initially in the Senate unless we’re able to turn around Georgia and pick up those two seats, but even then it's gonna be hard,” Biden said.
“I believe -- I know the place -- I believe we can ultimately bring it together,” the president-elect continued.
Biden spoke about the need to unite the country given more than 70 million people voted for Trump, stopping himself short, before adding that “at least half those folks…are just looking for answers. They’re not bad folks."
-ABC News' Molly Nagle
Biden laments that his transition 'should be further along' on COVID-19
At one point during an at-times emotional and technologically challenged virtual roundtable with workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis on Wednesday afternoon, Biden lamented that the General Services Administration has still not ascertained him as the winner of the election.
He warned that the delay is going to put his administration weeks behind in terms of a vaccine distribution program and other steps he plans to take to combat the spread of the virus.
“I am optimistic, but we should be further along,” Biden told a group, citing a law which says the GSA may recognize the apparent winner. "And we've been unable to get access to the kinds of things we need to know about the depth of the stockpiles. We know there's not much at all. We get to the point where we have a sense of when these vaccines comes out, how they'll be distributed, who will be first in line, what the plan is."
Biden said unless data and information from the federal government are made available to his team soon, they’re going to be “behind by weeks or months,” on the critically important vaccine program.
“So, I just want to tell you that that's the only slow down right now that we have," Biden said.
-ABC News' John Verhovek, Molly Nagle and Beatrice Peterson
Chris Christie: It’s time for Trump election challenges to end
When ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos asked former New Jersey Governor and ABC News Contributor Chris Christie if it was time for Trump's challenges to the election results to end, he agreed.
"Yes. And here's the reason why the president has had an opportunity to access the courts," Christie said on ABC's "This Week" Sunday. "And I said to you -- you know, George, starting at 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning, if you've got the evidence of fraud, present it."
"What's happened here is quite frankly -- the conduct of the president's legal team has been a national embarrassment," he added.