Joy Reid Mocks Donald Trump's Claim Minority Poverty Rates Are 'the Highest'

Joy Reid on Wednesday played a clip of President Donald Trump telling a campaign audience that African-American, Hispanic and Native American poverty rates "are the highest and the best numbers ever recorded by far." She used the line to argue that he has nothing to offer voters squeezed by gas prices and tariffs.

Trump almost certainly meant "lowest." He has made the same boast correctly before. The Census Bureau's latest figures, released last month, show record lows in poverty for Hispanic Americans and for children.

What Trump Said

Reid, the former MSNBC host, introduced the clip on The Joy Reid Show as "Donald Trump bragging about poverty in non-white communities." The clip is from the campaign trail; the show did not say when or where it was recorded.

"We have the most jobs, we have the best numbers. By the way, your 401(k) is the highest ever, the stock market's highest ever," Trump said. "African-American poverty, Hispanic-American poverty, and Native American poverty rates are the highest and the best numbers ever recorded by far."

Reid then imagined the reaction of the people applauding behind him: "What did I just clap for? Did I just clap for saying the poverty rates are the highest ever before?"

"He is an octogenarian and he is challenged in terms of the truth and facts." — Joy Reid

She also offered her own read on the slip, calling it "a little bit of challenge with the communication, which I kinda understand," and noting that Trump is in his 80s. Earlier in the segment, while mocking a separate clip of him waving on an airport tarmac, she said, "Apparently he took another cognitive test recently."

What the Census Data Shows

Trump has made a version of this claim before, and back then he said "lowest." At a September 2018 rally in Wheeling, West Virginia, he said poverty rates for Black and Hispanic Americans had "reached their lowest levels in the history of our country," which PolitiFact rated True based on 2017 data.

The newest figures support part of the boast he meant to make. According to the Census Bureau's Poverty in the United States: 2025, issued in September, the official poverty rate for Hispanic Americans fell 1.2 percentage points to 13.9 percent in 2025, a historic low. The overall rate fell to 10.2 percent, and child poverty also hit a record low, at 13.4 percent.

The poverty rate for Black Americans hit a record low of 17.1 percent in 2022, during Joe Biden's presidency, the bureau reported in 2023.

Joy Reid's Economic Argument

Reid presented the clip as evidence that Trump does not understand "the assignment when it comes to trying to help Republican voters have a reason to vote Republican, given how bad the economy is, given how much people are struggling financially with the high gas prices and with his tariffs destroying the economy."

In the show's opening preview, she said gas prices are "the actual main story" of the midterms. She contrasted that with what she called "the Republican Party's weird obsessive focus on transgender surgeries."

She came back to the point later in the show. Describing a recent trip to Houston, she said the Republican ads she saw on local news, in both the governor's race and Ken Paxton's Senate race, were "about one thing, trans people and trans surgeries."

Surveys back the broad point. In a Washington Post-Ipsos poll conducted July 8-13, 54 percent of registered voters cited the economy and high prices, the most cited issues in their midterm vote. Immigration came next, at 28 percent.

The national average for regular gasoline stands at $4.28 a gallon. PolitiKool's polling average puts approval of Trump's handling of the economy at 29.6 percent, with 67.9 percent disapproving. His overall approval is 37.8 percent in PolitiKool's polling average.

What Happens Next

Election Day is November 3. Democrats lead by 8.4 points in PolitiKool's generic congressional ballot average.

The 2025 Census figures give the White House some material to work with: record-low Hispanic and child poverty and, according to the Census Bureau, a median household income of $87,460, the highest on record (data go back to 1967). The open question is whether that record can compete with what voters pay at the pump, and with clips like the one Reid played.