The Axe Files, featuring David Axelrod, is a podcast distributed by CNN and produced at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. The author works for the podcast.

Chicago (CNN) Republicans on Capitol Hill are becoming dismayed by President Donald Trump and worry what his tumultuous opening month portends for the next four years, prominent neoconservative commentator Bill Kristol said.

"I think if you talk privately to Republicans on the Hill, it's like, 'Oh my God, what is going on? Can we survive this for four years?'" Kristol told David Axelrod on "The Axe Files," a podcast from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN.

The cautious optimism Republicans initially had "has flipped," he said.

This sense of confusion and unease will have legislative implications, Kristol predicts, as the policy goals of the Republican Party run up against political realities in Washington.

Kristol said congressional Republicans and commentators made a "big mistake" in believing the "facile" notion that the last eight years of legislation could be easily undone and replaced with conservative policies that would then be signed into law by a Republican president.

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