MAGA senator caught in 'blatant lie' as he puckers up to President Trump

A MAGA lawmaker on Sunday who tried to give President Donald Trump an A+ was caught in a "blatant lie."

Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) appeared on "Meet the Press" to defend what analysts (even conservative ones) have described as a "big miss" and "significantly worse than expected" — a new Bureau of Labor Statistics report finding the U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July.

Asked if Trump deserved an A+ on the economy, Banks replied, "I do!"

Banks made this claim as fuel prices spike to the point where mothers are bursting into tears at gas stations, the prices of grocery store staples are "skyrocketing," the Gross Domestic Product growth has slowed to a crawl, and tens of thousands have reportedly given up on looking for a job.

A recent CNN analysis of the jobs report described the situation like this:

"The economy feels so perpetually uncertain, fragile and contradictory that shifts in any direction feel really consequential," their analysis states. "We don’t know if this report exposed deeper cracks in the job market that could swallow up peoples’ livelihoods."

Banks's analysis was quite different.

"We've seen a significant resurgence, because of President Trump's trade policies, in bringing back those good-paying factory jobs," he said. "That's the return of the Made in America economy."

But it was Banks' claim that "every single jobs report except for this one has exceeded expectations" that infuriated independent journalist Aaron Rupar.

"One-third of Trump's job reports in his second term have shown job losses," Rupar wrote. "This is a blatant lie!"