'He needs senators': Conservative pundit Bill Kristol says shutdown debacle could get Trump impeached

President Donald Trump risking a partial government shutdown is a political blunder that will backfire on the White House, a panel on MSNBC's "Deadline: White House" explained on Thursday.

Bill Kristol, the former editor of The Weekly Standard, warned Trump's actions may haunt him during an impeachment trial.

"It's a terrible miscalculation for this reason: what does he really need to stop impeachment? He needs senators," Kristol explained. "Last night the Senate, by unanimous consent, voice voted this bill."

"I think if you are a serious conservative Trump-supporting senator right now, you think this guy is totally out of control," he predicted. "He's responding to three people on Twitter and two talk radio hosts and two random Republican congressmen?"

"And I just think the degree to which -- he might pick up a little with some of the people listening to Rush Limbaugh out there -- among actual people in Washington who follow this who have been disposed to at least give him the benefit of the doubt, people we've criticized all these months and years for giving him so much benefit of the doubt," he explained.

"This is a moment of, 'Are you kidding me?' I just voted for this last night and you're pulling the rug out from under me?" he added.

Sam Stein, the politics editor at The Daily Beast, also questioned Trump's political acumen.

"I could not think of a more asinine legislative strategy than what Donald Trump has done here," Stein said. "And to top it off, his big innovative solution to all of this to get this through is not to reach out to lawmakers but to brand it steel slats -- because that, according to him, will give lawmakers the cover they need ... a lot of actual Republican lawmakers will be like, 'this is a little crazy, maybe we should rethink this.'"

"It reminds these senators they aren't dealing with someone who is getting more rational, whose getting easier to work with, who is watching out a little bit for them occasionally," Kristol added. "It's just the opposite."

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