“He’s definitely more spooked than he was before,” a senior West Wing official told The Daily Beast. “Several of us are expecting to spend more time [testifying] on the Hill soon.”…

But three sources close to the president say that Trump and his aides are privately far more pessimistic. Recently, the president has stressed in conversations with confidants that if things go south for the GOP in November, he won’t take the blame and is prepared to scapegoat other party leaders. In Trump’s West Wing, words such as “slaughter” and “massacre” have come up among political, policy, and communications advisers in their private predictions of what this month could bring, according to three sources present for such conversations.

The growing sense of doom over the House possibly flipping has fed Trump’s political maneuvering over past few weeks. The president has pursued an aggressive, prolific campaign rally schedule as the election nears, driven in large part by the unease of his team. Politico reported last week that the White House was plotting a “political rescue mission in Florida,” out of fears that Republican defeat in the crucial swing state could hobble Trump’s 2020 reelection chances. At other stops, he has made the message just as much—if not more—about his own standing and agenda than the candidate he flew in to help.