Trump’s very bad summer: Even loyal insiders fear his total collapse

Sometimes when a skier gets tumbled and buried in snow they spit to see which direction ‘down’ is. But for Trump it won’t matter. It’s ALL down.

Axios reports that even longtime insiders fear President Donald Trump is trapped by a war he shouldn't have waged, tariffs he shouldn't have levied, and monuments he shouldn't be obsessed with.

“Read the polls, watch economic indicators and talk to President Trump's inner circle in private, and the verdict on his second term seems clear,” reports Axios. “… By the numbers: Trump's approval cratered to an all-time low of 32 percent in a Quinnipiac poll last week. Even more damning: 68 percent of voters said he isn't focused enough on the problems most Americans face.”

According to insiders, Trump has “squandered” the GOP's most durable political advantage. A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week and a Pew poll last month found voters split on which party is better for the economy — despite Republicans leading on the issue for nine years, all the way up to Trump's first term.

But now New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman estimates “70 percent” of the president's mindshare goes to renovations and monuments.

"It's a legacy thing," said Haberman — but insiders say it’s an effort by Trump to ignore his own doom. That is, if he’s aware of it.

"He concentrates on the hobbies that distract from his terrible polling numbers, about which he is in denial,” one insider told Axios. “The other issue is how the war, tariffs and monuments are demoralizing the base."

Meanwhile, insiders are logging complaints from top Republicans about Trump's reluctance to unleash the $400 million political war chest built by his super PAC, MAGA Inc. Trump’s unwillingness to spend big at this pivotal time for game-changing races has "demoralized donors," the insider said.

Axios reports campaigns are won and lost in the summer. It’s now August, and Republicans are knee deep in a “Trump-induced summer of discontent.”

Instead of pulling himself and his party back to the surface of the quicksand, Axios reports Trump is flushing political capital into still other self-destructive fixations like the doomed SAVE America Act. Instead, the president has refused to accept reality, and is whipping his MAGA base into a frenzy against GOP Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other Republicans who won't comply with changing Senate rules to give the SAVE Act an unlikely chance.

Top congressional Republicans told Axios that they’re aware of the impending loss of the House, and perhaps the Senate, and that some are delicately begging Trump to shift to affordability and the economy.

“But an 80-year-old man who made the greatest comeback in American political history appears too proud, stubborn and undisciplined to change, Republicans privately admit,” Axios said.