What made last week’s internal Republican fight different from previous intrafamily spats was that McConnell heard criticism from allies such as Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairman Roy Blunt (Mo.), a member of his leadership team, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee who has tried to bury the hatchet between McConnell and Trump.

Even Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), who has become known as a moderate in the Senate GOP conference, voiced his misgivings.

“I think this was a crisis entirely of McConnell’s making when he decided to announce the caucus’s position this summer. He created drama and thought it would go a lot differently than he expected and then he blinked,” said a Senate Republican aide who requested anonymity to frankly assess McConnell’s standing after the debt limit fight. “He put his caucus into a tough position.”

“He prides himself on protecting the caucus from tough votes and that obviously took a major blow,” the aide added.