Just hours after President Donald Trump praised himself for supposedly doing a near-perfect job with the economy, the monthly jobs report was released—showing an increase in unemployment and fewer jobs than analysts had expected.

The Labor Department revealed Friday that the unemployment rate has risen to 4.2% and that only 29,000 jobs were added in September—a far cry from the 90,000 jobs that experts anticipated.

Jobs numbers were also revised downward for previous months.

During a rally in Texas Thursday night for failing Senate candidate Ken Paxton, Trump declared success on the economy.

“The only thing we’re doing badly at is public relations,” he said. “In other words, we’re doing a phenomenal job.”

Public opinion polling has consistently shown that voters blame Trump and the GOP for the bad economy. Since retaking office, Trump has put in place terrible policies like tariffs—which have increased prices—and launched a war in Iran—which has restricted the fuel supply, causing gas prices to surge.

But Trump argued at his rally, as he has in the past, that these concerns are fake and that the concept of affordability is simply made up by the left.

“Remember they came up with the word ‘affordability,’” Trump said. “They always come up with these words: ‘Affordability.’ So the fake news starts using it, because they’re partners with the Democrats.”

This is, of course, a completely false conspiracy theory.

Trump has spent most of his time as a public figure espousing a host of fake conspiracies, often with racist messages.

But despite his rhetoric, the location of Trump’s reality-defying speech probably says more about the precarious state of his political future than anything else.

Texas, one of the GOP’s most loyal states, is where his handpicked candidate Paxton has been flailing for months. Despite Trump’s comfortable wins in Texas in 2024, 2020, and 2016—as well as GOP dominance of the state for decades—Paxton is trailing Democratic candidate James Talarico.

That Texas is in play is a testament to how Trump’s poor economic performance is resonating with voters.

During his first term, Trump became the only president since the statistic has been recorded to see a net job loss. And in his second term, he has fulfilled the long-standing GOP tradition of underperforming on the economy.

Trump can pat himself on the back and pretend that affordability is made up all he wants. But the data paints a far more accurate picture—and that is what Americans are paying attention to.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos