While many Americans will quickly start to feel the pain from a government shutdown in one way or another, it comes at an opportune time for Donald Trump.

For the first eight months of his second term in office, the president has been bragging about the strength of the economy, that foreign governments somehow are paying the US trillions of dollars, that prices are down, and that the US is the “hottest country” on Earth.

Reality tells a very different story.

At best, the economy’s performance is mixed.

While the gross domestic product (GDP) grew more than previously thought in the second quarter, inflation is up and the unemployment situation is dire.

On Wednesday, the payroll company ADP announced that its data shows that private sector businesses shed 32,000 jobs in September (instead of adding 51,000 jobs as experts had predicted).

In addition, the revised figures for August show that private companies also lost jobs that month instead of gaining 54,000 of them.

At the same time, the things Americans buy keep getting more expensive.

In August, food prices in grocery stores were up 0.6 percent, which was the biggest monthly increase in nearly three years (i.e., since the end of the inflation spike during the last administration).

Trump can get away with lying about a lot of things, but falsely claiming that prices are down and that the economy is amazing while Americans are losing their jobs and are paying more for their food doesn’t work.

This is also reflected in the consumer confidence index, which fell more than expected in September and reached its lowest point since April.

So what does someone like Trump do when he can’t lie his way out of a problem? Find someone else to blame.

And that is why this shutdown comes at a great time for the president.

On the one hand, he gets to reduce the size of the federal government even more (and fire some of those pesky civil servants he doesn’t like) while also punishing blue states.

For example, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought announced on Wednesday that the administration would cancel $8 billion in Green New Deal funds to a total of 16 states… all of which Trump lost in 2024.

In addition, the shutdown will allow him to withhold bad economic data from the public.

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer already stated that the shutdown would lead to the delay of the federal jobs report that was due to be released on Friday. Keep in mind that the past few of these reports were so bad for Trump that he fired the head of the agency that compiles them.

Even better, the shutdown provides him with a scapegoat for the struggling economy.

If it continues for some time, we can virtually guarantee that Trump and his allies will try to promote the narrative that he had just turned around the terrible Biden economy and ushered in a new golden age when those mean Democrats shut down the government to torpedo his success at the expense of every American.

Will it work?

Not if Americans are paying attention. Then they will know that the storm clouds have been gathering over the US economy for some time now, and that Trump’s own policies, especially his tariffs, are to blame for what’s to come.