US president-elect Joe Biden on Sunday announced an all-female senior White House communications team, in what his office called a first in the country’s history.

Among those named was Jen Psaki, who will serve in the highly visible role of White House press secretary.

Psaki, 41, has held a number of senior positions, including White House communications director for the Barack Obama-Biden administration.

Biden and vice president-elect Kamala Harris have sought to emphasise diversity in their appointments and nominations so far ahead of their January 20 swearing-in.

‘I am proud to announce today the first senior White House communications team comprised entirely of women,’ Biden said in a statement.

‘These qualified, experienced communicators bring diverse perspectives to their work and a shared commitment to building this country back better.’

In addition to Psaki, six other appointments were announced.

They include Kate Bedingfield, who was Biden’s deputy campaign manager, as White House communications director.

Bedingfield had also served as Biden’s communications director when he was vice president.

Other appointees include Ashley Etienne as communications director for Harris and Symone Sanders as Harris’s senior advisor and chief spokeswoman.

Pili Tobar was named deputy White House communications director and Karine Jean Pierre will be principal deputy press secretary.

Elizabeth Alexander was named communications director for incoming First Lady Jill Biden.

The appointments do not require Senate confirmation unlike most cabinet-level positions.

‘Honored to work again for @JoeBiden, a man I worked on behalf of during the Obama-Biden Admin as he helped lead economic recovery, rebuilt our relationships with partners (turns out good practice) and injected empathy and humanity into nearly every meeting I sat in,’ Psaki said on Twitter.

There were reports of a number of landmark nominations set for this week.

The New York Times reported that they were to include Cecilia Rouse as the first Black woman to lead the Council of Economic Advisers and Neera Tanden as the first Indian-American at the head of the Office of Management and Budget.

Biden on Monday selected former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen as his choice for treasury secretary.

‘Janet Yellen is nominated to serve as secretary of the treasury. If confirmed, she will be the first woman to lead the treasury department in its 231-year history,’ Biden’s transition team said in a statement.

Biden has also named the first female head of intelligence and the first Latino chief of homeland security.

Meanwhile, in the first TV interview since losing his re-election bid, president Donald Trump indicated Sunday that he will never concede to Joe Biden and abandon his conspiracy theory about mass ballot fraud.

‘It’s not like you’re gonna change my mind. My mind will not change in six months,’ Trump told Fox News interviewer Maria Bartiromo.

‘This election was rigged. This election was a total fraud,’ he claimed, again without backing this up. ‘We won the election easily.’

The 45-minute interview, Trump’s first on television since the November 3 election, was mostly a monologue of evidence-free claims concerning election fraud, virtually unchallenged by Bartiromo.

Despite Trump’s unprecedented attack on the validity of the US election system, his legal team has yet to provide any evidence that stands up in court.

Case after case has been rejected by judges around the country. The latest rebuff came from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which on Saturday turned down a lawsuit filed by Trump supporters seeking to contest Biden’s win in the state.

‘We’re trying to put the evidence in and the judges won’t allow us to do it,’ Trump said. ‘We are trying. We have so much evidence.’

Ignoring the usual boundaries between his office and the judicial and law enforcement system, Trump complained that the Department of Justice and FBI were not helping him.

They are ‘missing in action,’ he said, also questioning the point of the Supreme Court if it doesn’t intervene.

‘We should be heard by the Supreme Court. Something has to be able to get up there. Otherwise, what is the Supreme Court?’ he asked.

The 2020 election was not especially close.

Biden won the electoral college vote — the state-by-state competition deciding the winner — by 306 to 232. In the popular national vote, which does not decide the result but still has political and symbolic heft, Biden won by 51 to 47 per cent.

Losers of US presidential elections traditionally concede almost immediately.

But w