President Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are headed to a final showdown over his signature border wall, setting the stage for a rematch of a fight two years ago that shuttered the government for 35 days.

The White House is requesting a $2 billion installment to continue building the wall, while Pelosi and House Democrats have countered with no new money for construction.

Democrats have also proposed rescinding earlier wall funding, according to a House Democratic aide.

But whatever the agreed-upon amount, many Republicans are predicting Trump is going to put up a fight for more wall funding.

“It’s extremely critical, and I think he’s going to go to the mat on the border wall. And I think a lot of Republicans are going to go with him,” said Ford O’Connell, a GOP strategist. 

“The immigration issue is about being pro-worker and pro-jobs, and that is important to the Trump message going forward. And if Republicans don’t put up on this, they’re worried that the base will lose faith in them on one of their issues,” he added.

O’Connell said the wall fight is elevated by President-elect Joe Biden’s vow to reverse Trump’s executive orders on immigration.

Read more from Alexander Bolton at The Hill

Republican strategist Ford O’Connell says Democrats expect the national media to throw them softball questions and will 'blame and shame' journalists for asking hard questions.

With 365 days until the 2020 presidential election, Republicans and Democrats both have good reason to believe they have a political advantage, but several new polls paint a picture of a race that is closer than either party is likely comfortable with, as President Donald Trump and top Democratic contenders fall within the margin of error of each other in key states.

“This is going to be a barnburner, knockdown, ugly, tight race and frankly neither side should be confident,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell.

President Trump enters his reelection fight with historical headwinds favoring an incumbent and the strongest job market in decades. Although fears of a recession persist, Trump can boast of solid economic growth, steadily improving wages, and a record-smashing stock market.

However, he is also likely to be the first president to ever face reelection after being impeached, his approval rating has rarely climbed out of the low 40s, and most voters do not trust him. The economy is the only issue on which a majority of voters consistently signal approval for his policies, giving Democrats a clear opening if they can figure out how to take it.

Although national polls mostly offer good news for Democrats, they may be less instructive than battleground state surveys that provide a more muddled assessment. A New York Times/Sienna College poll of registered voters in six states Trump won by slim margins in 2016 suggests only Biden is currently ahead of Trump in most of them, and even he is still within the margin of error.

“The state-level polls give us a better indication,” O’Connell said. “Everyone seems to forget it’s all about the Electoral College regardless of what the national polls say.”

Read more from Stephen Loiaconi at ABC 6

President Trump and his allies will fight impeachment in the halls of Congress and over the airwaves by attacking Democrats’ partisan motives, making their case particularly for white voters in battleground states that the president is a victim of “unhinged” liberal hatred, sources close to the president said.

The president huddled with more than a dozen House Republican lawmakers at the White House on Thursday, hours after House Democrats approved a measure to move forward with an impeachment investigation centered on Mr. Trump’s overtures to Ukraine’s leader to investigate 2020 Democratic presidential front-runner Joseph R. Biden.

“The Democrats are desperate,” Mr. Trump told a British interviewer after the vote. “They’re going to try and win the election this way, because they can’t win it the fair way.”

While Republicans can’t stop the impeachment probe, they can escalate their barrage of criticism that the investigation is illegitimate and fundamentally unfair, supporters of the president say. Regardless of a vote to impeach the president, the strategy — coming soon to TV — will help him in a handful of states that will decide the 2020 election, they say.

“Essentially it’s about a PR campaign that is meant for about 10 percent of the persuadable voters in a total of about six states — Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, a little bit of Minnesota, North Carolina, Arizona,” Republican strategist Ford O’Connell said. “We’re really talking about a giant PR battle that’s going to carry over to the ballot box, more so than the actual trial itself.”

By a 52% to 44% margin, registered voters in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin said they oppose impeaching and removing Mr. Trump from office.

Said Mr. O’Connell, “The fact that he’s an incumbent gives him advantages. The party apparatus is going to walk in lock step with him. And he’s got a lot of money. If he comes out on top, it could be his best reelection ad.”

Mr. O’Connell said there was another piece of “great news” hidden in the House party-line vote: even the dozen or so “Never Trump” Republican lawmakers in the House voted with the president.

“The rules that were set up by Pelosi and Schiff were so bad, you even got the ‘Never Trump‘ Republicans to agree with Trump,” he said. “The Republicans are going to drive home over and over that the Democrats are violating historic precedent, they are violating the president’s due process, and that the Democrats have pre-planned this from day one.”

Read more from Dave Boyer at The Washington Times

President Trump has found himself increasingly isolated in Washington at a crucial point of his battle against House Democrats’ fast-moving impeachment inquiry. 

Trump alienated many Republicans with his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria as Turkey mounted an offensive against U.S.-allied Kurds, touching off a controversy that has reverberated for more than a week. 

Meanwhile, the president’s White House team has largely been absent from the airwaves as the administration’s blanket refusal to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry is put to the test.

As a result, it has fallen largely on Trump to serve as his own messenger and defender on matters of policy and politics.

He has responded by lashing out in increasingly coarse terms at Democrats pursuing an impeachment case and his critics who question his foreign policy strategy.

Republican strategists and former Trump advisers doubt that Republicans will break with Trump on impeachment because of differences over Syria, no matter how angry they are.

“Right now, public opinion is moving against him,” said GOP strategist Ford O’Connell, who argued that Trump has been smart in branding the impeachment inquiry unfair but that he would eventually need to hand over the reins to someone else to carry through the message. 

O’Connell said he thinks Trump can shift public opinion, though he suggests it will be a challenge.

Read more from Morgan Chalfant and Brett Samuels at The Hill

President Donald Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops from Syria, clearing the way for Turkey's assault on Kurdish allies who helped in the fight against the Islamic State, has created a rare rift with congressional Republicans who have sharply criticized the decision.

For the president, the timing is poor.

Trump's move has helped unite Democrats and Republicans against him at a moment when he needs conservatives in Congress to fend off a fast-moving impeachment inquiry looking into the president's efforts to push Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, one of his top political rivals.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and a close Trump ally, has been one of the harshest GOP critics of Trump's decision, tweeting last week that abandoning the Kurds would "put every radical Islamist on steroids.”

Other GOP senators, including Marco Rubio of Florida, Cory Gardner of Colorado, and Mitt Romney of Utah, have joined Graham in blasting the president's pullout.

If the Democratic-led House decides to impeach Trump, the Senate would have to hold a trial with senators acting as jurors.

Removal from office would require at least two-thirds of the Senate, or 67 votes.

But another Republican strategist, Ford O'Connell, said he didn't think the Syria issue would make GOP lawmakers any less likely to defend Trump on impeachment.

"They've compartmentalized it largely as a policy difference with Trump," O'Connell said of the Syria pullout. "They knew that he's been saying this and he prides himself as someone who tries to deliver on his promises."

Republican senators have concluded they can't win in 2020 without Trump on the ballot, O'Connell said. He pointed out that every Senate seat up for election in 2016 was won by the party whose presidential nominee also captured that state.

"They recognize that their ability to hold the Senate after 2020 depends on their political livelihood," O'Connell said.

Read more from Christal Hayes and Ledyard King at USA Today 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is keeping a low profile amid the growing impeachment battle surrounding the White House over President Trump’s political dealings with foreign governments.

President Trump’s troubles are deepening, according to several recent opinion polls that show rising public support for impeachment.

Those polls include one released Wednesday from Fox News that sent shock waves through Washington. It indicated 51 percent of voters support impeaching Trump and removing him from office.

Trump pushed back at that poll vigorously on Thursday, as did his campaign. But the broader fear among Trump loyalists is that Republican elected officials will begin to follow the trends in public opinion — and peel away from the president.

It’s a legitimate worry, according to some moderate Republicans.

The Fox News poll released Wednesday found that 51 percent favored Trump’s removal from office, a position shared by 57 percent of female voters, 50 percent of white female voters, 39 percent of independent voters and even 12 percent of self-described “Trump voters.”

Others, more supportive of Trump, asserted that such a breaking point is unlikely to ever come.

“Absolutely not,” said GOP strategist Ford O’Connell, arguing that Republicans who abandoned Trump would doom themselves to defeat. “Running from him is a fool’s errand. Everything runs through Trump, so running from him is not a smart idea.”

Read more from Niall Stanage at The Hill

Rep. Al Green has been trying for nearly two years to get his Democratic colleagues to start down the path of impeaching President Trump. He finally got his way — though the reasons now look far different than those the Texan laid out in his first attempt.

Then, it was over the president’s words after the 2017 racially-charged violence in Charlottesville that Mr. Green took to the House floor, and was roundly defeated.

Democrats have since tested out impeachment over Russian “collusion,” then impeachment for Mr. Trump’s attempts to hinder the Russia probe, then the president’s phone call trying to rope Ukraine’s president into investigating former Vice President Joseph R. Biden.

Now, in the latest iteration, Democratic leaders say Mr. Trump’s efforts to stymy that Ukraine probe could be grounds for impeachment on its own.

Republican strategist Ford O’Connell said Democrats have treated impeachment as a “prerogative” ever since the 2016 election and the first Russian-interference allegations. An ability to do something about it, though, became a reality when they retook control of the House in the 2018 election.

Polling shows support for impeachment has grown since Mrs. Pelosi announced the official inquiry, though most of those gains appear to be among Democratic voters who had been opposed, but are now on board.

Mr. O’Connell said things could change if the House takes the next step and actually votes on articles of impeachment. The White House this week all but dared Mrs. Pelosi to do just that — telling her they would refuse to cooperate with subpoenas unless there was a formal vote authorizing the impeachment investigation.

Mr. O’Connell warned that a vote like that carried political risks for both sides, but thinks it could turn out well if persuadable voters side with Mr. Trump.

Read more from Gabriella Muñoz at The Washington Times

The water had been rising from the moment Democrats recaptured the House of Representatives. In September, the impeachment dam finally burst. Now there is no telling who will drown in the coming flood or even which political party will find itself most squarely in its path.