Trump has attempted to project an air of confidence and belligerence for the public during his ongoing government shutdown, but how do things actually look within the White House?
White House and congressional aides who spoke to Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman say they have no idea how this conflict will be resolved because Trump has decided his fantasy border wall is the only thing that matters.
Inside the West Wing, Trump has told aides he’s prepared to stake his presidency on making a last stand. “He has convinced himself he can’t win re-election in 2020 unless he gets a lot of the wall built. It’s fundamental to his id,” a former West Wing official said. “The problem is, the Democrats know that.”
Trump’s aides fear he has given himself no way out. “The president put himself in a box,” the former official in touch with the White House told me. “The problem is there’s no endgame. Right now the White House is at a seven on the panic scale. If this thing goes on past the State of the Union they’re going to be at an 11.” Another prominent Republican close to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell described Trump’s handling of the shutdown as “total fucking chaos.”
I can't base this on anything other than personal observation and intuition, but I don't think the wall is nearly as important to his base or his reelection chances as Trump thinks it is.
Chanting "build the wall" or "lock her up" at a campaign rally may be fun to them, but do they really care? I don't think so. The number of people who would stay at home or vote for Trump's opponent just because he didn't build a dumb wall must be infinitesimal. Nearly 60 million Americans are always going to vote for the Republican nominee no matter who it is or what they do. That's just the reality of America. Even John McCain got 59 million votes after George W. Bush nearly destroyed the country.
If Trump drives the economy into a ditch over his wall, that's going to be far more consequential than whether or not he fails to build it.