'Great embarrassment!' Trump uses debunked claims in latest attack on job numbers

Former President Donald Trump reacted to Friday's jobs report — the final such report before the presidential election — with a manifesto on Truth Social filled with false and misleading claims.

"Today’s jobs report is a great embarrassment for our Nation," proclaimed Trump. "Kamala has lied for years about their pathetic job growth, which has never been real. Kamala killed 46,000 manufacturing jobs, while 773,000 Americans have lost employment in just the last year — all while their jobs have been taken by foreign-born workers."

"America is a Nation in Decline because Sleepy Joe, and Lyin’ Kamala, didn’t do their job. 'TRUMP' WILL FIX IT! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! GO VOTE!" he added.

Most of the year's jobs reports have shown strong economic growth. The latest, however, showed just 12,000 jobs added, underperforming expectations. Several analyst blamed the weak growth on two devastating hurricanes tearing through the South, and an ongoing labor strike at Boeing.

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Trump's claims about manufacturing jobs declining under the Biden administration have been repeatedly fact-checked, with analysts saying he got to his conclusions by counting the job losses from the COVID-19 pandemic in the final year of his presidency negatively against the nearly 800,000 manufacturing jobs created since he left office.

His claim that Americans are losing their jobs to "foreign-born workers" has been repeatedly debunked. Foreign-born workers have gained jobs on net at a faster rate than American-born workers, but this is primarily due to the U.S. population aging out of the workforce; both foreign- and native-born workers continue to enjoy low unemployment, experts have said.

Trump has sought to make the economy a centerpiece of his case for re-election, trying to capitalize on public anger over inflation. But polling has suggested Trump's trust edge with voters on inflation has collapsed as inflation has cooled. Trump has taken widespread criticism from economists over his plan to enact massive new tariffs on consumer goods.