Earlier this week, completely out of nowhere and unrelated to the midterm elections at all, reports began to surface that Donald Trump—who on Monday was ready to slap tariffs on every single Chinese import—had suddenly reached some kind of breakthrough with Beijing. On Thursday, the president tweeted that he’d had a “long and very good conversation” with President Xi Jinping, with “a heavy emphasis on trade,” and indicated things were “moving along nicely.” Later that night, articles appeared claiming Trump “wants to reach an agreement on trade” with Xi when they meet at the Group of 20 summit in Argentina, and that he’d “asked key U.S. officials to begin drafting potential terms, according to four people familiar with the matter,” and on Friday, the South China Morning Post reported that Trump had changed his travel plans to accomodate a “meeting plus dinner” with Xi, a sign, according to one source, that he was “keen to reach a deal.” All of this would obviously be very good, nay, great news given that markets are increasingly worried about a full-blown trade war and that, so far, the outcome of Trump’s tariffs-spree has involved layoffs for American workers, U.S. companies shifting production abroad, bailout-necessitating losses for farmers in Trump country, and the potential for thousands of new jobs in China.

Unsurprisingly, markets soared on the news, and all those Trump supporters who’ve been burned by his tariffs presumably got that warm, cuddly feeling back about the president just four days before the midterms. Except, according to National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow, the whole thing—to borrow a phrase from the president—is FAKE NEWS! “There’s no massive movement to deal with China,” Kudlow told CNBC on Friday, noting that though Trump’s conversation with Xi had been “pleasant and positive,” little actual progress was made on trade. “We’re doing a normal, routine run-through of things that we’ve already put together and normal preparation,” he added, stating, “We’re not on the cusp of a deal.”

That, of course, didn’t stop Trump from insisting to reporters after the interview that the Chinese “very much want to make a deal” and “we’re getting much closer to doing something,” which at least one investor says you can file under Complete and Utter Bulls--t. “I don’t buy the story for a second,” Michael Every, head of Asia financial markets research at Rabobank in Hong Kong told Fortune. “This seems a perfect way to ensure equities rally into election day, put Xi into a box in terms of what is expected of him and then have someone to blame when the deal then falls through.” And in related news: