Is the President already pre-failing his “border wall or the your annual physical gets it” hostage drama shakedown? As I noted on Friday, the President is or was setting up a government shutdown drama in which he threatens to deprive people of coverage from the Obamacare exchanges if Democrats don’t agree to fund his border wall. As explained here, this is not only an egregious bit of legislative hostage taking and mafia-like shakedown, it also shows a pretty poor grasp of the politics of the moment.

Now it seems that the White House may be trying to moonwalk away from the threat.

This from Jonathan Swan’s Axios newsletter …

Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” asked Priebus whether the administration would veto a government funding bill if there’s not money in it to fund Trump’s border wall. Priebus’ response here was telling: “It will be enough in the negotiation for us to move forward with either the construction or the planning, or enough for us to move forward through the end of September to get going on the border wall and border security in regard to border patrol…” Between the lines: By refusing to demand funding for the bricks-and-mortar “wall,” Reince tipped his hand. Trump can’t stomach a shutdown on his watch, so he’ll likely take a “win” on some form of funding for border security, even if it’s not specifically for building the wall.

The issue here or rather the driver is, I suspect, less the Democrats than Republicans who won’t go along with it either.