I would like to believe that, and it's certainly possible - he's not handling this well at all since normally he brushes shit off and the media gives him a pass, but his ignoring the media and then calling one of the journalists "piggy" and also saying that ABC's license should be revoked has their attention, and he's hearing Epstein questions everywhere. And as I said here or elsewhere, Texas losing out on the 5 seats while California adds 5, plus Massie, MTG, Mace, and Boebert has him in a bind next year.
And it sure as hell sounds like he and Johnson had something worked out, rather than things rushing through the Senate - maybe a slow roll back and forth between the Senate and House hashing things out, hoping the people and the media get bored or he gins up a distraction. It's a sign he doesn't have solid control of Congress anymore and the chambers seem to be butting heads.
I know there are people who are MAGA who are pissed at him over this stuff, I've got a few family members that have made it clear (one a Qanon/Pizzagater who bailed prior to 2024, the other two victims of some form of abuse), but I doubt he really thinks about his followers (or former followers) very much. I think he believes the media is not going to relent and that somebody will leak something, and he could very well spend the next year or two trying to manage this fallout.
But I still feel like it's less that he will personally face some kind of reckoning, legal or PR/political, and more like the Rs will get trounced next year, he'll lose one chamber of Congress for sure, maybe two, and he could face the fallout from that (impeachment or whatever).
And he's got to be paranoid as hell about the DOJ.