Trump campaign distances itself from attorney Sidney Powell: Transition updates

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Friday afternoon, at her first briefing at the White House in 50 days, confirmed that Trump will be meeting with Michigan lawmakers at the White House later in the day.

Asked what Trump plans to discuss with them and whether he will he ask them to have the state legislature appoint electors who will support his reelection, McEnany misleadingly cast the meeting as a routine event. 

"So he will be meeting later on. This is not an advocacy meeting. There will be no one from the campaign there. He routinely meets with lawmakers from all across the country," McEnany said. 

The invitation from Trump comes ahead of the state's board of canvassers meeting on Monday to certify the vote and amid the Trump campaign's ongoing fight over the outcome of the election, with relentless unsubstantiated claims of fraud and a string of unsuccessful legal challenges to the results.

McEnany, who regularly changes hats between White House press secretary and Trump campaign adviser, deferred to the campaign when asked what the strategy would be to overturn the election but repeatedly referred to “ongoing litigation."

Notably, the Trump campaign has had just one victory in court so far that still stands out of the 19 lawsuits it has filed since Election Day.

Asked about Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander calling on the Trump administration to at least allow Biden’s team the ability to reach out to agencies and access government data, McEnany cited the Presidential Transition Act in trying to argue that it’s the law -- and not the president’s refusal to concede -- that is preventing that from happening.

-ABC News' Ben Gittleson, Jordyn Phelps and Olivia Rubin

Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield, among the Republican state lawmakers expected to meet with Trump , tweeted he "won't apologize" for accepting a meeting with the president, adding that he's honored to speak with him.

The White House meeting comes ahead of the Michigan board of canvassers convening on Monday to review and certify the state's electoral results.

-ABC News' Kendall Karson

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 in the state to defend their majority in Washington.

Vice President Mike Pence touched down in Georgia Friday afternoon for two campaign events and was greeted by Gov. Brian Kemp and incumbent Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler upon his arrival. They all exchanged fist bumps while donning masks.

After exchanging pleasantries, Pence, Perdue and Loeffler posed together for the cameras.

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. If Democrats win both races, the Senate will be represented equally by the two parties, and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will step in to break the tie on any votes.

Democrats see promise in the purple state as Biden beat Trump by more than 12,000 votes there, audit results confirmed Thursday.

-ABC News' Terrance Smith

A growing list of Republicans on Capitol Hill are putting pressure on Trump to allow the transition process to begin for Biden, giving him access to intelligence briefings and pandemic planning despite the president clinging to power.

Sen. Mitt Romney, a frequent Trump critic and the only Republican to vote to remove Trump from office in his impeachment trial, issued a strong rebuke  late Thursday of the president’s move to invite Michigan lawmakers to the White House, saying, “It is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American President.”

Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, another Republican who has publicly feuded with Trump, urged Americans to look at what the president’s legal team is saying in court, not during press conferences, “because there are legal consequences for lying to judges” preventing them from making unfounded claims of widespread fraud.

"No, obviously, Rudy and his buddies should not pressure electors to ignore their certification obligations under the statute," Sasse said in a statement late Thursday. "We are a nation of laws, not tweets."

 In an interview with Fox News Radio Thursday, Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican and ally of Trump's, also called the barrage of accusations from Trump’s lawyers “offensive” and “absolutely outrageous.”

And while retiring Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander is still unwilling to outright claim Biden won the election, he said in a statement Friday, "it looks like he has a very good chance” and that Biden should start receiving transition materials, which he said is particularly necessary in the coming months for vaccine distribution. On Thursday, he also told Know News, a Tennessee news outlet, he hasn't seen any evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Democrats have also ramped up their rhetoric with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer telling Capitol Hill reporters he believes the president’s actions “border on treason” and that he is “undermining the very essence of democracy.”

-ABC News' Allison Pecorin and Mariam Khan