Trump Already Shapes Events

It's generally recognized that Trump played a large part in killing the border security deal, with the AP calling it a "sudden, stunning collapse publicly engineered by Trump". It looks like more is in the works:

Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he was uncertain if he could work with former ally turned political foe Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell if he were to be re-elected as president.

“He’ll probably end up endorsing me. I don’t know that I can work with him,” Trump said during a town hall on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle" on Tuesday. “He gave away trillions of dollars that he didn’t have to, trillions of dollars. He made it very easy for the Democrats.”

Clearly Trump is on the side of senators who already oppose McConnell:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and pro-Ukraine hawks within his conference gave away their leverage by voting to send billions more in aid to Ukraine despite not reaching a border security deal, several Republican senators who are increasingly frustrated with party leadership told the Daily Caller.

Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee and Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott all unloaded on McConnell in interviews with the Daily Caller and shared their gratitude for Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who said any Ukraine aid without border provisions will be “dead on arrival” in the House.

It seems to me that what's happening is that Trump, in military terms, is working to shape the battlefield for the general election campaign, and if anything, he means to make changes in the Republican legislative branch as well. The Daily Caller story observes farther down,

Republican leadership’s alleged prioritization of Ukraine over the southern border could come back to haunt them with voters, if polls are to be believed. Immigration consistently rates as a top issue for all Americans, especially Republicans — the same can’t be said for additional aid to Ukraine.

“[Ukraine] does not register. It is not something they think about . . . I would tell you right now, it’s probably up there with, I wanna say it ranked just above climate change, and climate change was really low,” Republican pollster and founder of the Trafalgar Group, Robert Cahaly, said of where Ukraine ranks among priorities for 2024 voters.

. . . Lee said a frustrated electorate could be what saves Republican senators from themselves, along with opposition in the House: “The two most effective tools we have moving forward are a GOP House majority that will actually fight for our priorities, and a very angry electorate who are tired of being thrown under the bus by their supposedly Republican elected officials.”

Meanwhile, Joe is still following last year's campaign script, claiming the Republicans are against fixing the border and denouncing them for not supporting Ukraine:

You may have heard some call into question the sanctity of America's commitment to our Allies.

That's not who we are.

We're a nation that can be relied on, that stands up to Putin. Let's prove it by passing the bipartisan National Security Bill so I can sign it into law. pic.twitter.com/BYXU1lwnkh

— President Biden (@POTUS) February 20, 2024

Except that the subtext the audience on X is picking up is that Joe needed a dozen takes to get something that could be edited into a coherent speech. This fits one of the main current issues in the campaign, Biden's age and condition; it puts him on the wrong side of the border issue, and it has him wasting time on Ukraine, an issue well down on voters' list of concerns.

I get the impression that Trump is thinking several months ahead of everyone else. He's already put the nomination out of reach, while the real proxy campaign right now is in the courts, where he's had the edge since the first indictments last year: each one drove him higher in the polls, and he's currently wiping the floor with proxy candidate Fani Willis.

I also suspect his contingency planning has already encompassed the likelihood of Biden withdrawing as a candidate.