President Donald Trump responded to a reporter’s question about Friday’s jobs report, which showed a terrifying slowdown in job creation, by claiming it was fabricated by bad actors in the Bureau of Labor Statistics in order to make him look bad. 

“Why should anybody trust numbers?” Trump said before launching into a semi-coherent and fictional story about election interference by the BLS. “You go back to Election—Election Day. Look what happened two or three days before with massive wonderful job numbers, trying to get him elected or her elected, trying to get whoever the hell was running—because you go back and they came out with numbers that were very favorable to Kamala, okay. Trying to get him—trying to get her elected. And then on the 15th of November or thereabouts, they had it 8[00] or 900,000 overstatement reduction right after the election. It didn’t work because you know who won, John? I won.”

Trump’s convoluted claim is absolutely false. The “[800] or 900,000 overstatement reduction” he is yammering about was a preliminary downward revision (by 818,000) of job estimates that the BLS announced on Aug. 21, 2024—months before the election. The finalized revision, released in February 2025, was 589,000 fewer jobs—not 900,000, and certainly not part of a plot to elect Kamala Harris.

Related | New jobs numbers hint at Great Recession 2.0

Because facts are not Trump’s friend, he fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer on Friday after the woeful jobs report was released. Going forward, Trump will likely rant away and spew fabricated facts to make himself feel better whenever bad economic news rears its head.