Trump has been struggling to walk back his tweet in which he appeared to admit Biden won

• President Donald Trump on Sunday tweeted that President-elect Joe Biden "won because the Election was Rigged."
• Many saw the message — the first time Trump described Biden as the election's winner in any form — as a concession of sorts.
• But the president later tweeted that he was not conceding, and allies claimed he had been commenting on what the media was saying about the election, or was speaking sarcastically.
• Trump has refused to concede and stirred baseless claims of election fraud since losing the presidential election more than a week ago.

President Donald Trump and allies spent Sunday backpedaling on a tweet in which the president for the first time appeared to acknowledge that President-elect Joe Biden won the US election.

Trump had refused to concede in the presidential election, which was called for Biden by Insider and most major news organizations more than a week ago.

He had continued to circulate baseless claims of election fraud on Twitter, while making significantly more limited claims of wrongdoing in the courts.

On Sunday it seemed that Trump had for the first time acknowledged his loss, at least in passing, when he began a tweet by saying Biden "won because the Election was Rigged."

Though he may have meant for the emphasis to fall on baseless allegations of election misconduct he made throughout the rest of the tweet, attention instead fell on what some saw as a grudging concession.

Commentators quickly characterized the message as evidence the president was beginning to acknowledge the election result, even as he continued to groundlessly dispute its legitimacy.

It seemed to build on comments Trump made Friday at the White House when he commented that "time will tell" who would be the next president.

In response to claims he had conceded, Trump attempted to undo the impression he had just created, tweeting: "I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go."

"I WON THE ELECTION!" the president tweeted later Sunday night.

Allies then offered various explanations for what Trump really meant.

In a statement to Bloomberg, the Trump campaign advisor Jason Miller said the tweet "was referring to the mindset of the media."

And in an interview on Fox News later, Rudy Giuliani, who is spearheading Trump's legal challenge against election results in several swing states, argued that the president had been speaking sarcastically.

"What he's saying is more, I guess you'd call it sarcastic or a comment on the terrible times in which we live, in which the media has said he won," Giuliani said.

In private, top aides to the president have conceded that Trump's prospects of overturning the election result are small. Some have speculated that Trump's real motive in disputing the election result is to keep his core supporters motivated as he contemplates a 2024 election run or forming his own media empire.

On Saturday, Trump in tweets cheered on supporters and members of far-right groups who gathered in Washington, DC, to back his vote-fraud accusations.

Trump's legal challenges against election results have so far fared poorly, with the Trump campaign seeing a series of lawsuits thrown out after attorneys failed to produce evidence of ballot fraud. On Sunday, the Trump campaign dropped a series of allegations in a lawsuit in Pennsylvania.

Biden has continued to appoint officials to his administration and shape his plans for when he is due to take office on January 20.