A word about the unemployment rate and this election.

This weekend on CNN’s Sunday show State of the Union, an interview between Jake Tapper and Donald Trump Jr. turned to the unemployment rate, about which Trump said: “These are artificial numbers, these are massaged to make the existing economy look good, to make this administration look good, when in fact, it’s a total disaster.”

To use as straightforward a word as possible, that’s a lie.

Reasonable people can and do disagree about the health of the economy, and how to measure the labor market, but the idea that the Bureau of Labor Statistics manipulates the monthly unemployment report is without any basis in fact.

It’s at best a fabrication and at worst, and most damaging, a malicious conspiracy theory.

Same thing goes, by the way, for the Republican nominee’s claim that unemployment in this country is at 42 percent.

This isn’t, to quote Jake Tapper, an anti-Trump position or a pro-Clinton position.

It is a pro-truth position.

For more coverage from the Republican and Democratic conventions, check out our podcast “Politics Inside Out.”