Republicans are concerned that President Donald Trump hurt his standing with Congress after he dropped funding for his proposed border wall from his federal budget demands, the Washington Examiner reports.
Trump had initially threatened to keep Obamacare subsidies out of the spending bill that would avoid a government shutdown if the minority party wouldn't agree to funding for a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. More recently he's backed down from this threat, upsetting Republican insiders and conservatives.
"He violated the basic rules of negotiations the same way Republicans have been preemptively surrendering on every budget bill until now," Daniel Horowitz, Conservative Review editor, told the Examiner. "The difference is that Trump was elected precisely to change the culture of preemptive surrender and weakness in negotiating with Democrats."
Trump denied any reversal on the wall in a tweet early Tuesday morning.
GOP insiders question if Trump's adjusted to his new role in government, since his old tactics as a candidate and businessman seem to be falling short.
"During the campaign, Trump's flurry of shifting statements kept the press and his opponents off-balance," Michael Steel, who was once an adviser to former House Speaker John Boehner and former GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush, told the Examiner. "But, so far, that tactic hasn't proven nearly as effective when it comes to passing legislation."
Horowitz added that Trump should take a lesson from his own book.
"This is The Art of the Deal playing out in real life," he said. "Trump himself warns in the book: 'The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you're dead.'"
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