Trump campaign distances itself from attorney Sidney Powell: Transition updates

Michigan lawmakers have arrived at the White House and were spotted walking into the West Wing just a couple of minutes before 4 p.m. 

Trump is meeting with at least two Republican leaders ahead of the state's board of canvassers meeting on Monday in an apparent effort to try to influence them to override certification of the state’s vote. This would set up the potential for the GOP-controlled legislature to choose its own slate of pro-Trump electors to vote for the president at the Electoral College's December meeting.

The prospect of the Michigan legislature intervening in a process that it is not involved in by state law is not one that has been publicly embraced in Lansing or on Capitol Hill.

Bob Bauer, a senior adviser to the Biden team, tore into the idea of Trump’s meeting earlier Friday, slamming it as “pathetic” and “an abuse of office,” but he maintained that "there's no way whatsoever" Trump will be successful in overturning the election.

Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield, who is among those meeting with Trump, tweeted earlier in the day he "won't apologize" for accepting a meeting with the president, adding that he's honored to speak with him.

Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are sitting down with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leaders Chuck Schumer at The Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware, for their first in-person meeting since the election. 

Reporters were briefly allowed into the top of meeting where Biden could be heard telling Pelosi and Schumer about how his team has repurposed various buildings around Wilmington to hold meetings and conduct transition work. He also thanked them for making the trip.

"Thanks for having us,” Schumer could be heard saying in return, while Pelosi said it’s an “honor” to be with him.

Biden also referenced the frosty relationship both Pelosi and Schumer have had with the current occupant of the Oval Office.

"In my Oval Office, -- mi casa, you casa," Biden said. "I’m gonna need you. I hope we’re gonna spend a lot of time together."

All four wore masks and were socially distanced, seated at a large rectangular table.

Pelosi told reporters on Capitol Hill earlier in the day they would discuss the lame-duck session and urgency of passing another round of coronavirus relief legislation. She also left the door open for the House of Representatives to intervene in Biden's transition as the Trump administration blocks it, though she didn't elaborate on details.

-ABC News' John Verhovek, Molly Nagle and Beatrice Peterson

Trump emerged before cameras on Friday afternoon to deliver remarks on lowering prescription drug prices which quickly unraveled into an attack on big pharmaceutical companies he claimed were working against him and a false declaration that he won the election. 

“Big pharma ran million dollars of negative advertisements against me during the campaign -- which I won, by the way, but you know. We will find that out,” Trump said.

Turning to the coronavirus and promising news of vaccines, Trump accused Pfizer of delaying the release of its preliminary vaccine data until after the election as retribution for Trump's announcement of new rules designed to lower drug prices.

“So they waited and waited and waited and they thought they’d come out with it a few days after the election. And it would probably have had an impact. Who knows? Maybe it wouldn't have,” Trump said.

He left the event without taking questions from reporters. Since the election, Trump has held just three public events at which he hasn't taken any questions.

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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