“Lie After Lie”: TV Networks Break From Live Trump Address

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks about the 2020 U.S. presidential election results in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, U.S. on November 5, 2020

Several US TV networks late on Thursday halted live coverage of Donald Trump’s first public appearance since election night after concluding that the president was spreading disinformation.

Trump unleashed a flood of incendiary and unsubstantiated claims in a 17-minute address, insisting that Democrats were using “illegal votes” to “steal the election.”

The president spoke as late vote counting in battleground states showed Democrat Joe Biden steadily closing in on victory.

“OK, 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.

NBC and ABC News also pulled the plug on their live coverage of Trump.

“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.”

As former Vice President Joe Biden moved closer to winning the White House, Republican Trump adopted a fighting posture on Thursday, making false claims to undermine a vote that was not going his way.

While Biden called for calm and patience, Trump, without offering evidence, said his opponents were engaging in fraud and election theft, accusations he has been making long before Election Day.

“If you count the legal votes I easily win,” Trump said during remarks at the White House. “This is a case where they’re trying to steal an election. They’re trying to rig an election, and we can’t let that happen.”

Trump suggested he had won states that have been called in favor of Biden and sharply criticized polling before the election that he said was designed to suppress the vote because it favored the Democrat.

Polls this year, similar to the 2016 election that he won, predicted a much weaker electoral performance by Trump than he achieved.

The president, a former reality TV star who regularly plays to cameras and crowds, took no questions from reporters in his first appearance since early Wednesday morning.

The president’s comments came as the election results continued to swing toward his Democratic rival.

A somber mood prevailed at the White House. Aides to the president said they remained cautiously optimistic that he still had a path to re-election, while conceding that he may lose.

Trump worked from the Oval Office on Thursday in what was otherwise largely an empty West Wing. Many of his senior staff were huddled at the campaign’s headquarters in nearby Virginia.

“He’s very engaged, he’s monitoring, talking to all the states. It doesn’t look good, but this guy wants to keep fighting,” said one Trump confidante, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “He’s in a fighting mood right now. He’s not melancholy or dejected. But the path is getting harder and harder.”

The president’s campaign has launched multiple legal challenges in the states where votes are still being counted.

One White House official said he was confident the strategy of legal challenges would prevail, even if television networks call the race for Biden once final vote counts in states such as Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania come in.

Another lamented the loss of support among suburban women that helped doom Trump’s chances in Wisconsin, while lauding the president for changing the Republican Party for decades to come by attracting more Latino and African-American votes.