Trump campaign distances itself from attorney Sidney Powell: Transition updates

At his weekly press conference on Capitol Hill Tuesday afternoon, newly reelected House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy seemed to acknowledge that Biden could be the next president. 

Asked what he thinks of Biden suggesting that he has the unique ability to work with a divided Congress given his decades of experience as a senator, McCarthy told reporters, "If the election gets called in the manner in the way it's driving, we'll have to have that question answered."

McCarthy deflected answering if Trump should concede and instead said the election is over when all the results are in and after the legal challenges are settled.

"I think every legal vote needs to be counted. I think every recall needs to be finished. And every legal challenge needs to be heard. When those are all done, yeah, that's the appropriate time that you'll know the outcome of the election," he said. 

Questioned on how Republicans plan to move on from Trump, McCarthy said Trump isn't going anywhere.

"Well, you're assuming President Trump is moving on. I think the president, regardless of whether he's president again, or he's citizen Trump, I think he will continue to play a part in this nation," McCarthy said. 

-ABC News' Mariam Khan

In his second press conference of the day, Gabriel Sterling with the Georgia Secretary of State's Office announced that another county, Fayette, has discovered ballots that were not properly uploaded to its election results.

Election officials learned Tuesday that the county had failed to upload a memory card of votes. Sterling said it was about 2,775 votes, and the county will re-certify its results on Wednesday. Those votes will lead to a net gain for Trump of 449 votes, which brings the margin to Biden +12,929 votes, Sterling said. 

Sterling differentiated the incident in Fayette from that in Floyd County, where actual ballots that were not scanned were found. In Fayette County, the ballots were scanned and tabulated, but the memory stick containing the votes was not uploaded or reported in results. 

Sterling said he was confident the state would certify election results by the Friday deadline, and also added that he doesn't "see any reason why" the counties can't meet the midnight deadline Wednesday to complete the audit.

He said that 78 counties were completely finished -- "flat out done" -- with the audit process, which means that 81 counties are still working through it. 

Of the 78 counties, Sterling said that 57 of them have found "zero deviations" from their original results. The remaining 21 of these 78 counties found a deviation of "plus one or minus one" from their originally reported vote count.

-ABC News' Quinn Scanlan and Brianna Stewart

In their first call with reporters on Tuesday, the three co-chairs of Biden’s COVID-19 task force said they need immediate access to the federal agencies to ensure there is no delay in rolling out a vaccine. They also warned that they aren’t sure when the latest surge will peak and just how bad winter will get.

“We don’t have a day to waste," said David Kessler, former head of the Food and Drug Administration and co-chair of Biden’s COVID-19 task force. "The vaccine distribution is difficult and daunting under any circumstances." 

“It’s not hyperbole when you think about how dire things are” added Marcella Nunez-Smith, a Yale physician and co-chair. “I think we can disrupt the trajectory” but we need as much information as possible, she later added.

Kessler later gave a nod to the COVID-19 Tracking Project and other data projects he said his team is dependent on without access to the federal data.

As the Trump administration refuses to ascertain Biden, the president-elect's team is denied access to resources a  normally available during a transition. With the pandemic raging, that includes access to Health and Human Services career staff who are preparing distribution plans for the vaccine, latest updates on stockpile numbers for essential items and detailed vaccine distribution plans.

-ABC News' Anne Flaherty

In his first tweet of the day, Trump this afternoon said he's "reversed the ridiculous decision to cancel Wreaths Across America at Arlington National Cemetery" -- an annual program which had been canceled this year due to the coronavirus.

The president's tweet comes after the secretary of the Army said he had directed Arlington National Cemetery to safely host the event.

On any other day, Trump's tweets might number in the double digits by the late afternoon, but Trump has been uncharacteristically silent since the election, holding just three events open to White House press in the last two weeks and not taking any questions.

The tweet breaking his silence also came hours after his acting Secretary of Defense announced that the military will carry out the president's order to draw down troops in Afghanistan and Iraq before he leaves office.

Trump has not publicly weighed in on the highly-consequential decision.

-ABC News' Jordyn Phelps