Michigan state legislature closes offices due to 'credible threats of violence'
Law enforcement recommended the Michigan legislature close its offices.
President Donald Trump is slated to hand over control of the White House to President-elect Joe Biden in 39 days.
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Harris arrives on Capitol Hill to vote
Vice President-elect and California Sen. Kamala Harris arrived on Capitol Hill Friday morning ahead of the Senate’s midnight deadline to pass a one-week continuing resolution on a government funding bill to prevent a shutdown.
“I’m here to vote,” Harris told reporters as she entered the building.
Harris is expected to vote to break the filibuster on the National Defense Authorization Act, an annual military budget bill, which Trump has twice threatened to veto.
Harris was last on the Hill on Nov. 17 to vote against a Trump nominee to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
-ABC News’ Allison Pecorin
Trump plants time bombs for GOP with refusal to admit realities: Analysis
The Trump presidency is now destined to end with falsehoods -- a blizzard of baseless accusations about the election that he lost, as distilled into a final plea to the Supreme Court.
Trump's ask is for the nation's highest court to overturn the results of the election. As unlikely as he is to succeed, that breathtaking statement doesn't even encapsulate the principles at stake that will matter long after Biden is inaugurated.
Some 106 House Republicans -- more than half the GOP conference -- are backing the president's effort to get the Supreme Court to step in. More than that number continue to resist labeling Biden "president-elect," just three days before the Electoral College will cement Biden's victory based on certified results from every state.
So much of the Trump era is ephemeral and transactional. Some Trump loyalists will essentially pretend as if Trump never existed, or that his smashing of conservative principles in service to Trumpism wasn't what it was.
But some of those principles -- of federalism, the rule of law and even basic democracy and common sense -- are still at stake at this moment.
Trump once famously promised to his supporters that they would be "sick and tired of winning" one day. Now, though, what Trump is losing could outlast the limited days of his presidency.
-ABC News' Political Director Rick Klein
Overview: Trump pressures SCOTUS to overturn election, Biden to introduce more staffing picks
While Trump waits to hear whether the Supreme Court will take up Texas' case seeking to overturn and invalidate the votes of millions of Americans in four battleground states, he's continuing his pressure campaign on the high court Friday morning, calling on justices to “do what everybody knows has to do be done.”
Experts say justices are unlikely to take up the case, but the Texas lawsuit has quickly become a loyalty test for Republicans with 106 representatives -- about one-fourth of the House or half of the Republican caucus -- asking the high court to disregard millions of votes in a democratic election.
Trump also voiced his resistance Friday morning to turning over distribution of coronavirus vaccines to the incoming Biden administration, tweeting "they want to come in and take over one of the ‘greatest and fastest medical miracles in modern day history'" and slamming the Federal Drug Administration as a "big, old, slow, turtle" moments after Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told ABC's "Good Morning America" that emergency authorization use of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine is imminent and vaccinations could start as early as Monday. Trump's tweet follows months of him pressuring the agency to speed up its process for approving vaccinations.
Meanwhile, as the Biden White House takes shape, the president-elect is turning to familiar faces in former Obama administration officials to fill top posts and will be introducing some of those picks from Wilmington, Delaware, Friday afternoon.
His latest additions include tapping Dennis McDonough, former President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, as his nominee for secretary of veterans affairs, and naming Susan Rice, Obama’s former national security adviser, as the director of his White House Domestic Policy Council. These picks have some Democrats worried that with the resurgence of so many Obama-era officials there's little room for rising stars in the party.
In another historic first for the Biden team, the president-elect and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris were named as Time’s 2020 "Person of the Year" -- the first time a vice president has been given the title.
States blast Texas bid to overturn election as 'seditious abuse of judicial process'
Four states sued by Texas in a bid to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to swiftly reject the case and avoid legitimizing "a cacophony of bogus claims" that would upend the will of millions of American voters.
In court filings Thursday afternoon, the attorneys general of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia were scathing in their rebuttal to Texas' suit.
"The Court should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process," said Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro told the justices in a court filing for his state.
-ABC News' Devin Dwyer
Biden confirms Austin as secretary of defense pick, pens op-ed explaining his decision
Shortly before releasing his press release confirming retired four-star Gen. Lloyd Austin as his pick to lead the Pentagon, The Atlantic magazine published an op-ed penned by Biden op-ed, laying out the reasons behind his choice and noting their history together in the Obama administration.
“Today, I ask Lloyd Austin to once more take on a mission for the United States of America—this time as the secretary-designate of the Department of Defense. I know he will do an outstanding job,” Biden wrote.
Austin, the former commander of U.S. Central Command -- with jurisdiction over military activities in the Middle East -- retired in 2016 after more than 40 years of military service. If confirmed, he would be the first African American to lead the Pentagon.
Biden pointed to Austin’s ”many strengths and his intimate knowledge of the Department of Defense and our government” as factors that made him “the person we need in this moment," saying his experience leading the Iraq drawdown prepares him for coordinating vaccine distribution and connecting with American families.
“And the next secretary of defense will have to make sure that our armed forces reflect and promote the full diversity of our nation. Austin will bring to the job not only his personal experience, but the stories of the countless young people he has mentored. If confirmed, he will ensure that every member of the armed forces is treated with dignity and respect, including Black, Latino, Asian American, Native American, women, and LGBTQ service members," Biden wrote.
Biden also seemed to address the fact that Lloyd’s nomination would require a waiver given his recent military service -- something that some Democrats have already expressed opposition to.
“I respect and believe in the importance of civilian control of our military and in the importance of a strong civil-military working relationship at DoD—as does Austin," he wrote.
"Austin also knows that the secretary of defense has a different set of responsibilities than a general officer and that the civil-military dynamic has been under great stress these past four years," Biden added.
The announcement comes as Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris meet with civil rights leaders who have pushed Biden to name more people of color to senior-level Cabinet positions.
-ABC News' Molly Nagle