US President Donald Trump was told he has a "lovely smile" by an audience member at the NBC town hall debate Thursday night, in one of the weirdest moments of the campaign so far.

He replied to the audience member's question by making false claims about his immigration policies.

The female audience member, Paulette Dale, said her grandparents were from Russia and Poland - and asked for his thoughts on DACA - Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a programme which allows some children who came to the US as children leave to remain and work in the US.

Trump has long tried to kill off the programme, but was thwarted in the Supreme Court, which struck down his measures.

"We’re going to take care of Daca," the President claimed. "We're going to take care of Dreamers. It's working right now.

"We're negotiating different aspects of immigration law."

https://twitter.com/mikeysmith/status/1316910812624203776

He went on to make a false claim about how much of his border wall had been built. He said: "We've built now over 400 miles of border wall, southern border. Mexico's working very closely with us, we've got the strongest border we've ever had."

By October 9, 360 miles of wall had been built - most of which was replacing border barriers which already existed.

The President added: "We want people to come into our country, they have to come in legally. "But we're working very hard on the Daca programme and I think you will be very happy with the course of the next year, because I feel the same way as you do about it."

But, as host Savannah Guthrie noted, the Daca programme is effectively dead at the moment.

She said: "Under your administration no new applicants are allowed, and in fact, Daca recipients have to renew every year, rather than every two years.

"So in fact the Daca programme has been curtailed by your administration."