The White House Is Starting to Panic Over the Midterms
The White House Is Starting to Panic Over the Midterms
白宫开始对中期选举感到恐慌
President Donald Trump has told aides that he thinks Republicans could still outperform expectations in the midterm elections this November, seemingly unwilling to confront the worsening political climate for the GOP. 唐纳德·特朗普总统告诉助手，他认为共和党人在今年11月的中期选举中仍有可能超出预期，他似乎不愿面对共和党日益恶化的政治环境。
But aides acknowledge privately that the national polling for Trump is shockingly bad, and the White House, in recent weeks, has begun to contemplate for the first time losing both the House and Senate majorities. 但助手们私下承认，特朗普的全国民调结果糟糕得令人震惊。近几周来，白宫首次开始考虑失去众议院和参议院多数席位的可能性。
One longtime Trumpworld operative, who correctly predicted weeks before the 2024 presidential election that Trump was on course to win every battleground state, summed it up for Inner Loop: “Oh, yeah, we’re going to get creamed.” 一位长期在“特朗普圈子”工作的幕僚曾准确预测特朗普将在2024年大选前几周横扫所有摇摆州，他向《Inner Loop》总结道：“哦，是的，我们要惨败了。”
Trump’s approval rating recently dropped to 37 percent in a Wall Street Journal poll, the lowest of any president heading into a midterm election dating back to 1990, when these polls first began. Trump’s more positive outlook has been informed in part by internal polling that shows Republicans down by less in individual House races, the sources say. 在《华尔街日报》最近的一项民调中，特朗普的支持率跌至37%，这是自1990年此类民调开始以来，任何总统在中期选举前的最低支持率。消息人士称，特朗普之所以持更乐观的态度，部分原因是内部民调显示共和党在个别众议院选区的落后幅度较小。
“No one can dispute the fact that President Trump has created one of the most robust coalitions in political history with the MAGA movement,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle tells WIRED. “The choice has never been more clear: doubling down on President Trump’s winning, commonsense agenda or the Democrats’ extreme liberal policies and obstruction.” 白宫发言人戴维斯·英格尔（Davis Ingle）告诉《连线》（WIRED）杂志：“没有人能否认这样一个事实：特朗普总统通过‘让美国再次伟大’（MAGA）运动，建立了政治史上最强大的联盟之一。选择从未如此清晰：是继续支持特朗普总统获胜的常识性议程，还是选择民主党极端的自由派政策和阻挠。”
To counter the deeply negative political environment for Republicans this cycle, Trump’s team started looking for foreign policy wins last month that he would be able to tout to voters in order to encourage turnout from his MAGA base, sources say. 消息人士称，为了应对本周期对共和党极为不利的政治环境，特朗普的团队上个月开始寻求外交政策上的胜利，以便向选民吹嘘，从而鼓励其MAGA基本盘的投票率。
That led Trump to quickly sign an agreement between the US and Denmark that allows more American forces on Greenland, even though it stopped short of a US takeover that the president has long desired. 这促使特朗普迅速签署了一项美丹协议，允许更多美军驻扎在格陵兰岛，尽管这并未达到总统长期以来所渴望的“接管”程度。
Trump also proclaimed an oil deal with Venezuela. However, that deal is likely to need renegotiating because it asserts a 100-year concession on oil production that contravenes Venezuela’s national hydrocarbons law barring such practices. 特朗普还宣布了一项与委内瑞拉的石油协议。然而，该协议很可能需要重新谈判，因为它主张对石油生产拥有100年的特许权，这违反了委内瑞拉禁止此类行为的国家碳氢化合物法。
But while Trump sees foreign policy as a legacy-defining issue, voters have been far more focused on domestic issues like high grocery and gas prices. 尽管特朗普将外交政策视为定义其政治遗产的关键议题，但选民们更关注食品和汽油价格高昂等国内问题。
Diesel prices hit a record high this month and regular gasoline reached a national average of $4.43 a gallon, according to the AAA, while Trump has been on the opposite side of public opinion on tech issues like AI regulation and data centers. 根据美国汽车协会（AAA）的数据，本月柴油价格创下历史新高，普通汽油全国平均价格达到每加仑4.43美元。与此同时，特朗普在人工智能监管和数据中心等科技议题上的立场也与公众舆论背道而驰。
Now, with their election chances that much slimmer, Trumpworld is much more concerned about planning a response to what will likely be an immediate crush of subpoenas from Democrats in Congress, the sources say. 消息人士称，现在随着选举胜算变得更加渺茫，特朗普团队更关心的是如何应对国会民主党人可能发起的密集传票攻势。
Broadly speaking, the White House expects a dual track of Trump asserting executive privilege and attorney-client protections, the bedrock legal principle designed to protect confidential discussions with lawyers, to shield senior aides from oversight probes. 从广义上讲，白宫预计将采取双重策略：特朗普将主张行政特权，并利用律师-客户保密特权（旨在保护与律师之间机密讨论的基石法律原则），以保护高级助手免受监督调查。
Attorney-client privilege is set to be supercharged when it involves government lawyers, after the US Supreme Court ruled in the so-called Trump immunity decision in 2024 that not even federal courts could “peel back the curtain” to examine discussions that involve deliberations central to the presidency. 在涉及政府律师时，律师-客户保密特权将被“强化”。此前，美国最高法院在2024年所谓的“特朗普豁免权裁决”中裁定，即使是联邦法院也无法“揭开帷幕”，去审查涉及总统核心决策的讨论。
One unique aspect of Trump’s second term has been the conversion of his personal lawyers into government lawyers, producing a consistent network of overlapping legal protections around himself and his top aides. 特朗普第二任期的一个独特之处在于，他将私人律师转变为政府律师，从而在他本人及其高级助手周围建立了一个相互重叠的法律保护网。
Trump’s former personal lawyer Todd Blanche, for example, has become the attorney general. Many of Trump’s aides were previously represented by the current number three at DOJ, Stanley Woodward, who also was a Trump 2024 campaign lawyer. Trump’s former appellate lawyer, Will Scharf, recently moved from White House staff secretary to White House counsel, replacing former Trump lawyer David Warrington. 例如，特朗普的前私人律师托德·布兰奇（Todd Blanche）已成为司法部长。特朗普的许多助手此前由现任司法部三号人物斯坦利·伍德沃德（Stanley Woodward）代理，后者也曾是特朗普2024年竞选团队的律师。特朗普的前上诉律师威尔·沙夫（Will Scharf）最近从白宫秘书转任白宫法律顾问，接替了前特朗普律师大卫·沃灵顿（David Warrington）。
Trump’s aides are hoping that the double protections will stymie Democrats for years. And they have some precedent: Trump’s White House counsel from his first term, Don McGahn, only testified to Congress about the Mueller investigation after Trump had already left office. 特朗普的助手们希望这种双重保护能让民主党人受阻多年。他们也有先例可循：特朗普第一任期的白宫法律顾问唐·麦克加恩（Don McGahn），直到特朗普卸任后才就穆勒调查向国会作证。
After November 3, the midterms will end in the minds of most Americans. But for Trump’s White House, it’s all just beginning. 11月3日之后，在大多数美国人眼中，中期选举将宣告结束。但对于特朗普的白宫来说，一切才刚刚开始。