EXACTLY....republicans are afraid of the media. By giving the politicians 3 weeks extension for deadline, Trump has clear path to declare emergency. If he had done it today, he comes across as dictatorial.
This.
The only way to save the nation now is the Julius Caesar option, but Trump has to not look like it while he is doing it. We've been a republic about as long as Rome was a republic, which is pretty good given human nature; maybe God will grant us a few more generations, but as Franklin put it, a republic is around only as long as people can keep it.