He’s lying, but he does have a point. My impression is that there are a lot of people in the US who feel they’re on the edge of disaster, the “one paycheque away…” folks.
Trump, of course, is not “one pay cheque away” and wouldn’t care, but like a classic carnie barker, he knows what attracts the customers. And he mixes it in with the race-baiting, so it’s a particularly unpleasant sales pitch.
We had an interesting thread on the topic a few years ago, comparing the idea of “one bad break” for American dopers compared to Dopers from other countries: