In 1974, Republicans Barry Goldwater and John Rhodes informed Richard Nixon that his support had eroded in the Senate and that he was facing all but certain conviction and removal from office, triggering the 37th president’s resignation. It’s unlikely that Donald Trump will ever face such a moment; the same Republican party that eventually turned on Nixon has protected Trump at every turn. But that doesn’t mean the impeachment inquiry Nancy Pelosi and Democrats launched Tuesday isn’t cause for alarm in the White House. The push, in response to the president’s attempts to get Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, is unlikely to result in his removal from office. But, as Politico reported Wednesday, allies and aides privately fear that it will derail his agenda, weaken his position, and completely dominate his attention as he heads into a tough reelection battle in 2020.

Both current and former administration aides told the outlet that impeachment proceedings are likely to monopolize Trump’s focus, sinking anything he’d hoped to accomplish in the fall. “It would mean USMCA probably doesn’t get done,” a former official told Politico. “It would declare war on whatever legislative agenda they still have.” For a president already so desperate to get something done that he’s reportedly told staffers not to worry if they broke the law in the process of carrying out his signature campaign promise, a standstill doesn’t bode well. His base, like him, may be whipped into a frenzy over impeachment proceedings, but a failure to follow through on basic promises could imperil his standing with swing voters—especially if the economy takes a nosedive.

There’s also the president’s fragile ego to contend with. According to Axios, Trump is well aware that “from the perspective of history it’s not good to be just the fourth American president to face impeachment.” Per friends who’ve spoken to him, he “hates that this is now part of his eternal narrative.”

On the surface, Trump’s allies are presenting a confident front. “It’s a total distraction,” Rep. Martha McSally told Politico of impeachment. “For the people I represent, this is not what they’re talking about.” Others have attempted to turn the focus to Biden’s alleged corruption instead. “My guess is that, in the long run, the White House and campaign think the media eventually and reluctantly will have to take a serious look at Hunter Biden’s business dealings both in China and the Ukraine, and it will be devastating,” Newt Gingrich predicted. Trump, too, has responded with a typical mix of self-aggrandizement and victimhood. “Witch hunt!” he tweeted, reprising his characterization of the Russia probe that engulfed the first two years of his presidency. But his frantic tweets on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, which included a flood of Fox News videos attesting to his innocence, suggest Trump is, in fact, concerned about the probe. “There has been no President in the history of our Country who has been treated so badly as I have,” he whined Wednesday. “The Democrats are frozen with hatred and fear. They get nothing done. This should never be allowed to happen to another President.”

He has good reason to be worried. Trump has admitted to attempting to get the Ukranian government to probe Biden, one of his top 2020 rivals, over the conspiracy theory that the VP leaned on Kiev to fire a prosecutor who had been investigating a company with ties to Hunter Biden. He has also told reporters that he opted to withhold aid from Ukraine, though he claims that those two facts are unrelated. Yet a transcript of a July 25 phone call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky released Wednesday confirmed the request, with Trump telling his counterpart that “there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that.” The ask came after an exchange over the US’s involvement in Ukraine. “I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine,” Trump noted. “We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time.”

Still, some close to Trump still believe he can walk away. As one senior administration official told Politico, Trump has habitually moved from one outrage to the next, with none sticking for long. “Everything is presented as Armageddon,” the official said. “The absolutely worst thing he has ever done! You can excuse the public for believing nothing is that way.”

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