Several television networks in the United States on Thursday night cut away from live coverage of President Donald Trump's first public appearance since election night, as the leader of the free world was deemed to have been spreading disinformation.

The three big broadcast networks -- ABC, CBS and NBC -- cut away from Trump’s news conference at the White House.

In his 17-minute address, Trump unleashed a flood of incendiary and unsubstantiated claims insisting that Democrats were using "illegal votes" to "steal the election from us".

The president's un-fact-checked comments came as late vote-counting in battleground states showed Democrat Joe Biden steadily closing in on victory.

Trump timed appearance to coincide with evening news

Trump timed his appearance to air during the networks’ evening newscasts, which draw the biggest collective audience in TV news.

But the anchors cut in after a few minutes to correct some of Trump's falsehoods.

"Okay, here we are again in the unusual position of not only interrupting the president of the United States but correcting the president of the United States," said MSNBC anchor Brian Williams, as the network quickly ended its live coverage.

MSNBC has a large liberal following.

It has been more aggressive than other channels in choosing to hold off on airing the president live.

However, other networks also did the same.

Lester Holt, the NBC Nightly News anchor said: “We have to interrupt here, because the president made a number of false statements, including the notion that there has been fraudulent voting.”

He added, “There has been no evidence of that.”

"What a sad night for the United States of America to hear their President say that, to falsely accuse people of trying to steal the election," said CNN's Jake Tapper.

He described it as "lie after lie after lie about the election being stolen," with no evidence, "just smears."

On ABC, the anchor David Muir broke in and told viewers “there’s a lot to unpack here and fact-check”.

The CBS correspondent Nancy Cordes spent about 90 seconds going through several of Trump’s baseless statements.

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