President Donald Trump looks out at reporters in the Rose Garden as he speaks after a meeting with U.S. Congressional leaders about the government shutdown at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 4, 2019. Jim Young | Reuters

After singing his praises for years, some of President Donald Trump's most influential defenders have abruptly changed their tunes. Just as recent polls show Trump's base of supporters shrinking, some elites of the pro-Trump media sphere have turned on the president for his failure to secure border wall funding after a 35-day partial government shutdown. While politicians generally pay close attention to the media, even Republicans in Congress have speculated that a handful of conservative pundits hold significant sway over this president. He reportedly maintains close relationships with some talk-show hosts and has even invited some to speak at his campaign-style rallies.

The impasse in Congress over whether to fund a border wall — Trump's signature promise during the 2016 campaign and a major plank of his presidential agenda — resulted in hundreds of thousands of federal workers missing at least one paycheck, a bevy of government services halted and a spike in sick leave among some Transportation Security Administration staff that caused delays at major airports. Trump demanded that any bill include $5.7 billion toward a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but Democrats refused. With polls showing a majority of Americans blaming him for the standoff, Trump, who said that he would be "proud" to shut down the government over the wall, signed a measure Friday to reopen the government for three weeks while negotiations over border security continued. It was an option he could have taken at any point during the shutdown. The move was panned by some of his staunchest conservative allies, who viewed it as a capitulation to Democrats.

Ann Coulter David Orrell | CNBC