APPLENEWS - STORY ADD
Trump-Biden transition updates: At least 20 arrested, 1 stabbed at DC protests
The event was largely peaceful, but grew violent after crowds thinned at night.
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 one week after Biden was projected as the winner of the presidential race.
Trump has largely hunkered down inside the White House since the election, but on Saturday his motorcade drove drove past supporters gathered to rally in Washington, D.C., on his way to play golf.
Biden, meanwhile, is pressing forward, meeting with transition advisers in Delaware and calling Trump's refusal to concede "an embarrassment."
The Biden transition team and the Trump administration are in a standoff over whether Biden should be granted access to federal resources allocated for the transition of power. The General Services Administration, headed by a Trump appointee, has yet to officially recognize Biden as the victor in the election, preventing Biden's team from gaining full access to government funds and security information.
But a growing number of Republican senators are calling on the administration to start giving Biden classified intelligence briefings, a sign that support for Trump's refusal to concede the election may be waning among his allies on Capitol Hill.
Top headlines:
Trump receives update on Operation Warp Speed
A U.S. Marine stood outside the West Wing Portico Friday afternoon indicating Trump was in the Oval Office. His schedule showed him receiving a status update on Operation Warp Speed, the federal government's coronavirus vaccine program.
Trump's update was the president’s first publicly announced event related to the pandemic all week. It comes as the virus is raging, with the country breaking records of new cases and hospitalizations, and after months of Trump not attending a meeting of the coronavirus task force.
-ABC News' Jordyn Phelps and Ben Gittleson
Pelosi attacks GOP for denying election results instead of 'recognizing' COVID
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., slammed Republicans on Friday for not accepting the election results and, she said, "making it even harder to address the massive health and economic crisis facing America."
"The longer the Republicans keep up the charade, the further out of control the COVID crisis with spiral, and more endangered Americans will be," Pelosi told reporters on Capitol Hill.
The House Speaker also fielded questions about House Democrats' poor performance in the election that could give them the slimmest majority in the House in decades. She claimed Democrats always knew it would be tough to hold onto seats won in Trump districts two years ago, even though she and her team predicted they would expand their majority this year.
"We're getting ready already for the next time, a number of our candidates have said they're going to run again," she said of the losing Democrats.
Asked if she took responsibility for the losses as she left the the press conference, Pelosi said, "I take responsibility for winning the majority."
-ABC News' Benjamin Siegel
Trump campaign ends 'voter fraud' hotline, downsizes staff
After a week of Trump campaign staffers answering a "voter fraud" hotline as Trump's team continues to search for evidence of voter fraud, the number is no longer operational, and the campaign is now directing people to its online form instead, multiple sources tell ABC News.
As ABC News reported, that hotline was getting flooded with prank calls, and lewd images were being sent through the online form set up to collect voter fraud claims.
The news comes as the Trump campaign is significantly downsizing staff starting next week with only a small number of staffers receiving an extension through the end of the month, multiple sources said.
-ABC News' Will Steakin and Katherine Faulders
Georgia runoffs ramp up
As the balance of power in the Senate -- and Biden's subsequent ability to pass the big-ticket legislation he's hoping for -- hangs on two election runoffs in Georgia, Republicans are rallying to "Defend the Majority” as Democrats see promise in the purple state.
On Friday, Florida Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican and vocal ally of Trump’s, is joining GOP incumbent Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler for an afternoon rally in Cumming, Georgia. Earlier in the week, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida joined Loeffler to kick off her runoff campaign at an indoor rally.
Loeffler is facing a challenge from Rev. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, while Purdue is facing Jon Ossoff, who nearly flipped Georgia’s 6th Congressional District for Democrats in a special election in 2017.
The runoff elections will be held on Jan. 5.