Trump campaign distances itself from attorney Sidney Powell: Transition updates

While the Trump administration blocks Biden’s transition and subsequent access to federal pandemic plans, Biden is taking matters into his own hands, speaking directly with front-line health care workers in a virtual roundtable as cases surge across the country. 

Joined by a handful of front-line health care workers from different states including a firefighter paramedic from Indiana, a home care worker from Washington and a nurse from Minnesota, Biden opened the roundtable by thanking them for their participation and promising to protect them.

“It's not enough to praise you, we have to protect you. We have to pay you. And you deserve leadership that listens to you and that works as hard for you as you do for the families in your communities,” Biden said from the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware. 

The participants took turns sharing their stories with Biden telling them he’d have more questions for them after everyone spoke. Mary Turner, president of the Minnesota Nurses Association, got choked up when talking about how she’s been on the picket line for months urging the federal government to do more in its response. 

“Unfortunately, the federal government has not been there. As a result, the pandemic is surging and front-line workers are getting sick and die,” she said through tears. “Nurses across the country were so relieved and grateful, Mr. President-elect, when you committed to take your passion that we need to have to get this pandemic under control.”

In the morning news conference from Georgia’s secretary of state’s office, Gabriel Sterling said while he couldn’t give an exact number of counties that were completely finished with the audit, results in 112 counties were either exactly the same as the county originally reported or the count was within single digits of what was originally reported.

Of these counties, 58 had zero deviations and 20 had deviations of just one vote in either direction.

As of about 11 a.m. Wednesday, 4,968,000 ballots had been hand-counted as part of the audit of the approximately 5 million ballots cast in the presidential race, according to Sterling.

He said that it’s likely results of the audit won’t be made public until Thursday, but that he would have more concrete guidance during a 4 p.m. press conference.

Sterling also announced that there was one additional county -- Douglas -- where an uncounted memory card of votes was discovered, raising the total to four counties in Georgia that have found unreported votes during the audit. Douglas County failed to upload results stored on one memory card from an election day precinct. The county realized the error when the hand count came up with more ballots than was reported.

The card revealed 128 votes for Trump, 156 votes for Biden and seven votes for Libertarian Jo Jorgenson.

Heading into the audit, Biden led by a margin of about 14,000 votes, and, with all the previously unreported ballots added, the margin in Biden's favor was 12,781 votes, according to Sterling. 

-ABC News' Quinn Scanlan

The Trump campaign has officially requested recounts in just two of Wisconsin's counties: Milwaukee and Dane, home of the state's largest cities, Milwaukee and Madison, and the state's two Democratic strongholds.

These two counties both voted overwhelmingly for Biden, with Dane County at 75.5%-22.8% and Milwaukee County 69.1%-29.3%. Milwaukee also has the state's largest Black population, and the campaign's targeting of voters for not supplying voter ID is likely to come down squarely on people of color, who are already the most disenfranchised by Wisconsin's voter ID laws.

In response to the Trump campaign alleging voter fraud in the state, Milwaukee County Election Commission Director Julietta Henry told ABC News Wednesday that, "We will have the recount and we will show that all of the allegations that are here are without warrant."

Wolfe, county clerks and other officials including former Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker have also repeatedly said the recount is extremely unlikely to change the results of the election -- and that's now all but impossible given its focus on two counties.

The recount will now take place over the next 13 days in time for the state's Dec. 1 certification deadline.

-ABC News' Cheyenne Haslett

An early read of Senate GOP reactions to Trump's firing of Christopher Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency who maintained the 2020 election was the most secure in American history, indicates an uncommon break from the president. 

While many of Trump's allies maintain that the president has the right to have whomever he wants working for him, several have admitted that Krebs was a good appointee who did quality work. 

"From everything I saw it appeared he did an able job in a difficult and important role," said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. 

"My interactions with Krebs have been positive," Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told reporters. "I don’t have any criticism of his work but maybe the president knows something I don’t.”

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, gave perhaps the harshest rebuke from a Republican yet, arguing that the firing is creating chaos. 

"It’s the president’s prerogative, but I think it just adds to the confusion and chaos, and I’m sure I’m not the only one that would like some return to a bit more of a -- I don’t even know what we call normal anymore," Cornyn said. "We’ll call it the next normal. It's not the new normal." 

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., who criticized Trump on a call with constituents ahead of the election, released a statement late Tuesday saying that Krebs "obviously should not have been fired."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday morning said the firing reinforced the requirement Trump puts on those who work for him: "You can never tell the truth," Schumer said.

-ABC News' Allison Pecorin