While Senate Republicans relish the president’s judicial appointments and many of his domestic policies, they’ve never fully embraced Trump’s style of politics.

Donald Trump made a defiant prediction last week that Senate Republicans will be the bulwark to keep Democrats from ending his presidency.

But behind the scenes, Republicans and Trump’s informal circle of advisers are tempering the president’s bravado, expressing concern over whether the president can truly count on a GOP-led Senate to keep him in office.

While Senate Republicans relish the president’s judicial appointments and many of his domestic policies, they’ve never fully embraced Trump’s style of politics. And that raises eyebrows in Trump world.

“If there’s one place where you can set a trap that nobody expects, it’s the U.S. Senate Republican Conference,” said Michael Caputo, a former Trump 2016 campaign adviser who remains close to the president.

If the House impeaches Trump, the process will be kicked over to the Senate for a trial, in which Trump must lose 20 of the 53 Republican senators to be removed from office.

It’s a prospect that may seem far-fetched. Senate Republican officials say the party still foresees an almost entirely partisan outcome in a potential impeachment trial. And Republicans — especially those up for election in 2020 — have long been afraid of losing Trump’s base if he turns on them. They’ve rarely defected from the president in large numbers for key votes.

But the landscape could shift quickly if fresh details emerge that help Democrats make their case that Trump must go, said Michael Steel, a longtime GOP operative and aide to former House Speaker John Boehner.

“If the Democrats are able to make an argument that’s clear and captures the public imagination … then you start thinking more seriously about what a Senate trial could look like and whether you could get to that possibility,” Steel said of a scenario in which enough GOP senators defect to remove Trump.

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