Consensus opinion is that the August jobs report was lousy. For starters, the 156,000 net new jobs created by employers last month missed the consensus forecast of 180,000. Payroll gains for June and July were revised lower for a net loss of 41,000 jobs. The jobless rate ticked up to 4.4% even as the participation rate stayed steady and the employment rate ticked lower. Average hourly earnings rose 0.1% month-over-month, the weakest since November 2016. “August’s employment report was disappointing across the board,” is how Capital Economics put it.

But I wonder if Team Trump sees things the same way.

First of all, August is a notoriously noisy jobs report, so much so that IHS Markit said the Fed will “discount it fully.” So maybe not a sign of a major slowdown. (Of course, if the report meant the Fed would stop its tightening cycle, the POTUS would probably be fine with that.)

Second, even with the underwhelming report, gains have averaged 185,000 per month over the past three months. Much higher than what is considered the steady state for US employment gains. Maybe twice as high or more.

Third, the report’s internals show a job market rewarding Trump voters and Trumpian economic values. For instance: manufacturing jobs were up 36,000, construction 28,000, mining 7,000. And about those factory jobs, economist Ryan Decker notes on Twitter: “Last time mfg production employment rose by 50k was end of GM strike in 1998. Happened a total of 4 times in the 1990s.”

Finally, perhaps this jobs report does make it at least a bit more likely the Fed pauses.

So if the Trump White House wants to put some positive spin on this report, I think it can.