Trump briefly alludes to defeat - in a tweet here, a slip there

WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump has yet to admit defeat in the US election. But with a word here, a slip there, he is raising the prospect ever more plainly.

In a tweet on Sunday morning, Mr Trump appeared accidentally to acknowledge Mr Joe Biden's victory - before quickly reversing course to claim he won, and again push unsubstantiated claims of mass electoral fraud while ignoring soaring coronavirus cases.

"He won because the Election was Rigged," Mr Trump tweeted.

The first two words - coming days after a verbal slip in which Mr Trump said "time will tell" if he remains president - were immediately seized upon as one more step towards a concession.

But he soon made a U-turn, tweeting: "He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go."

And late on Sunday night, he said "I WON THE ELECTION!" in a tweet swiftly flagged by Twitter.

President-elect Biden captured 306 electoral college votes in the Nov 3 election - 36 more than needed to win the White House.

Senior federal and state election authorities, including a top cyber-security agency and 16 federal prosecutors assigned to monitor the vote, have rejected claims of widespread election tampering.

Still, Mr Trump continues to insist he will prove fraud and prevail in court.

Meanwhile, the leaders of nearly every country in the world have congratulated Mr Biden on his victory, reinforcing the notion that almost no one - in the United States or elsewhere - is taking the Trump legal challenges seriously.

Those challenges have been nearly universally dismissed by judges as unfounded.

On Sunday, Mr Trump insisted that "many" of them had not been filed by his team, and that his "big cases... will soon be filed".

Reacting to Mr Trump's initial tweet, Mr Biden's newly named chief of staff Ron Klain told NBC's Meet the Press that it was "further confirmation of the reality that Joe Biden won the election".

Mr Biden himself met his transition advisers on Sunday in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, his spokesman said.

Some Trump administration officials say privately that they understand that Mr Biden won, but that the president needs time to "process" his loss.

Others on the outside speculate that Mr Trump may be trying to galvanise his base to back some future commercial or media endeavour or even to support a new run for office in 2024.

Until now, he has refused to cooperate in the shift to a Biden administration - denying the Democrat both federal funding for transition work and vital briefings by outgoing officials.

Democrats say that this could have a damaging impact both on national security and on the grave and mounting challenges posed by the coronavirus outbreak, with cases on Sunday soaring past 11 million since the start of the pandemic - one million of those in the last six days alone.

"Joe Biden's going to become president of the United States in the midst of an ongoing crisis," said Mr Klain. "That has to be a seamless transition."

For now, he said, Mr Biden and his team are not even allowed to consult with someone like top government immunologist Anthony Fauci.

"Of course it would be better" if such talks could begin, Dr Fauci told CNN on Sunday, noting that the virus could kill tens of thousands more Americans by the time Mr Biden takes office on Jan 20.

Former president Barack Obama told CBS' Sunday Morning that there was "damage" in Mr Trump's delay in acknowledging Mr Biden's victory.

Millions of people would believe there was fraud - because the president said so - in a development corrosive to democracy, he added.

A small but growing number of Republican figures have begun pressing for Mr Trump to concede, including former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, a critic of the president since leaving the administration.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE