According to Axios, longtime insiders close to President Donald Trump increasingly fear he is trapped by a war he should not have waged, tariffs he should not have levied, and monuments he should not 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," Axios reports.

Trump's approval rating has cratered to an all-time low of 32 percent in a Quinnipiac poll conducted last week. Even more damaging, 68 percent of voters said the president is not sufficiently focused on the problems most Americans face. The erosion comes as public concern over inflation and cost of living remains a defining political issue heading into the 2026 cycle.

Insiders told Axios that Trump has "squandered" the Republican Party'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 equipped to handle the economy — despite Republicans having led on the issue for nine consecutive years, extending into Trump's first term.

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman estimates that approximately 70 percent of the president's attention is directed toward renovations and monuments. "It's a legacy thing," Haberman said, though insiders describe it as an effort by Trump to avoid confronting his own political decline — if he is even 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."

Top Republicans have also voiced complaints to insiders about Trump's reluctance to deploy the $400 million political war chest assembled by his super PAC, MAGA Inc. His unwillingness to commit major spending at this critical juncture for pivotal races has "demoralized donors," the insider said.

Axios notes that campaigns are frequently won and lost during the summer months. With August underway, Republicans find themselves mired in what Axios describes as a "Trump-induced summer of discontent." The GOP's vulnerability is sharpened by the historical pattern in which the president's party tends to lose ground in midterm elections — a dynamic Republicans now fear is being amplified by Trump's current priorities.

Rather than course-correcting, Trump is channeling political capital into additional self-destructive priorities, including the SAVE America Act, which is widely seen as unlikely to pass. The president has refused to accept political reality and is inciting his MAGA base against GOP Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other Republican senators who will not support changing Senate rules to give the SAVE Act a remote chance of passage.

Top congressional Republicans told Axios they are bracing for the likely loss of the House — and possibly the Senate — and some are quietly urging Trump to pivot toward 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 reported.

Source: Alternet