US President elect Joe Biden has described it as an embarrassment that Donald Trump has not conceded the election.
Mr Biden said it would be nice to have his concession, but it is not critical.
He went on to say that nothing would stop the transfer of power and that he hopes to put forward names for at least some cabinet positions by Thanksgiving.
He added that transition efforts could go ahead without Federal funding, but it would be useful to get daily intelligence briefings.
Mr Biden said that while speaking to world leaders by phone, he told them: "America is back".
A short time before Mr Biden spoke, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promised a "smooth transition" after US elections, but refused to recognise President-elect Biden's victory, saying Donald Trump will remain in power.
"There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration," Mr Pompeo said in an at times testy news conference when asked about contacts with the Biden team.
"The world should have every confidence that the transition necessary to make sure that the State Department is functional today... with the president who is in office on 20 January a minute after noon will be successful," he said, referring to the date of the presidential inauguration.
It comes as Mr Trump is to push ahead with long-shot legal challenges to his loss to Mr Biden in last week's election, as Republican officials at the state and federal level lined up behind him.
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Pennsylvania Republican state politicians plan to call for an audit of the results in the state that gave Mr Biden enough electoral votes to win, the day after US Attorney General William Barr told federal prosecutors to look into "substantial "allegations of irregularities.
For months before the election, Mr Trump made repeated claims without providing evidence that results would be marred by fraud, and he's kept up those unfounded allegations over the past week.
Judges have thrown out lawsuits in Michigan and Georgia, and experts say Mr Trump's legal efforts have little chance of changing the election result.
But Congress's top Republican, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, yesterday lined up behind Mr Trump, saying that he was"100% within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities," without citing any evidence.
The dispute is slowing Mr Biden's work in preparing for the work of governing, as a Trump appointee who heads the office charged with recognising election results has not yet done so.
Mr Biden on Saturday secured the more than the 270 votes in the Electoral College needed to win the presidency.
He also led Mr Trump in the popular vote by 4.6 million votes this morning as states continued to count the remaining ballots.
Mr Barr's directive to prosecutors prompted the top lawyer overseeing voter fraud investigations to resign in protest.
Mr Barr told prosecutors yesterday that "fanciful or far-fetched claims" should not be a basis for investigation and his letter did not indicate the Justice Department had uncovered voting irregularities affecting the outcome of the election.
But he did say he was authorising prosecutors to "pursue substantial allegations" of irregularities of voting and the counting of ballots.
Richard Pilger, who for years has served as director of the Election Crimes Branch, said in an internal email that he was resigning from his post after he read "the new policy and its ramifications".
The previous Justice Department policy, designed to avoid interjecting the federal government into election campaigns, had discouraged overt investigations "until the election in question has been concluded, its results certified, and all recounts and election contests concluded".
The Biden campaign said Mr Barr was fueling Mr Trump's far-fetched allegations of fraud.
"Those are the very kind of claims that the president and his lawyers are making unsuccessfully every day, as their lawsuits are laughed out of one court after another," said Bob Bauer, a senior adviser to Mr Biden.
One of Mr Barr's predecessors as attorney general, Republican Alberto Gonzales, told CNN the timing of the Barr memo was "very, very unfortunate" because it contributes to the perception that the Justice Department was being used for political purposes.
"If you're asking me do I think there have I seen evidence of widespread fraud, to a level that would overturn the results of this election? No, I have not," said Mr Gonzales, who served under former President George W Bush.
Republicans remain loyal to Trump
Although a few Republicans have urged Mr Trump to concede, the president still held the support of prominent party leaders who had yet to congratulate Mr Biden.
Mr Trump's campaign yesterday filed a lawsuit to block Pennsylvania officials from certifying Mr Biden's victory in the battleground state, where Mr Biden led by more than 45,000 votes.
It alleged the state's mail-in voting system violated the US Constitution by creating "an illegal two-tiered voting system" where voting in person was subject to more oversight than voting by mail.
It was filed against Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and the boards of elections in Democratic-leaning counties that include Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Ms Boockvar's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"The Trump campaign's latest filing is another attempt to throw out legal votes," Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said on Twitter.
Pennsylvania state Representative Dawn Keefer plans to call for a legislative audit of the state's election results.
As Mr Biden begins work on his transition, his team is considering legal action over a federal agency's delay in recognising his victory over Mr Trump.
The General Services Administration normally recognises a presidential candidate when it becomes clear who has won, so a transition of power can begin.
But that has not yet happened and the law does not spell out when the GSA must act.
GSA Administrator Emily Murphy, appointed by Mr Trump in 2017, has not yet determined that "a winner is clear", a spokeswoman said.
