Knives Are Out in the White House

President Donald Trump’s aides were reeling from the scale of Republican losses on Tuesday night, but they almost immediately began figuring out who to blame.

周二晚上，唐纳德·特朗普总统的助手们对共和党的惨败感到震惊，但他们几乎立即开始寻找替罪羊。

The ultimate responsibility, officials acknowledged only in private, lay with Trump for taking the country into an unpopular war with Iran that drove up prices, which became the number one issue for voters.

官员们私下承认，最终责任在于特朗普，因为他将国家拖入了一场不得人心的对伊战争，导致物价上涨，而这成为了选民最关心的问题。

But in the absence of being able to blame Trump publicly, there has been growing pressure to find scapegoats in all places, from cabinet officials to White House aides to conservative media commentators.

但在无法公开指责特朗普的情况下，各方压力与日俱增，人们开始从内阁官员、白宫助手到保守派媒体评论员等各个角落寻找替罪羊。

Recalling how then-president George W. Bush pushed out defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld after the GOP lost both chambers in 2006, sources say there is an expectation from furious officials and donors for Trump to do something similar.

消息人士称，回想起2006年共和党失去参众两院控制权后，时任总统乔治·W·布什解雇了国防部长唐纳德·拉姆斯菲尔德，愤怒的官员和捐赠者们现在也期待特朗普能采取类似的行动。

Trump does not seem to have made up his mind on whether he should, sources say, in part because of a recognition that there was perhaps not much that his staff could have done to stave off such overwhelming Democratic victories.

据消息人士透露，特朗普似乎还没有下定决心是否应该这样做，部分原因是他意识到，面对民主党如此压倒性的胜利，他的幕僚们或许也无力回天。

He has also been advised recently, sources tell Inner Loop, that it may be better to keep top staff inside the proverbial tent to ensure they remain loyal in the event they receive subpoenas from congressional investigators next year.

消息人士告诉《Inner Loop》，特朗普最近还得到建议，最好将高级幕僚留在“帐篷内”，以确保他们在明年收到国会调查人员的传票时依然保持忠诚。

Still, some early scrutiny has been cast on people around Trump who have been viewed as encouraging the president to continue the Iran war even as it started to drag down polls months before the midterms.

尽管如此，一些早期审查已经指向了特朗普身边的人，他们被认为在对伊战争开始拖累中期选举前几个月的民调时，仍鼓励总统继续这场战争。

Some scrutiny has been directed at defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who has been the target of a whisper campaign that he kept presenting rosy military outlooks that misled Trump into believing more strikes could win the war.

一些审查针对的是国防部长皮特·海格塞斯，他成为了流言蜚语的目标，被指一直提供乐观的军事前景，误导特朗普相信更多的打击就能赢得战争。

The presentations had been so glowing, sources say, that a number of top officials, including vice president JD Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio this spring started requesting their own intelligence briefings to get a more somber assessment of the situation.

消息人士称，这些报告过于乐观，以至于包括副总统JD·万斯和国务卿马尔科·鲁比奥在内的多位高层官员，在今年春天开始要求获取自己的情报简报，以获得对局势更严峻的评估。

The Department of Defense did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

国防部没有立即回复置评请求。

In other quarters, Trump advisers have been furious with conservative media commentators who they see as having encouraged the president to double down on the war even after it became mired in a stalemate over the Strait of Hormuz.

在其他方面，特朗普的顾问们对保守派媒体评论员感到愤怒，他们认为这些评论员在战争陷入霍尔木兹海峡僵局后，仍鼓励总统在战争中孤注一掷。

And still others returned to blaming White House deputy chief of staff James Blair, who temporarily left the administration to develop the GOP midterm strategy, including an effort to redraw congressional maps to favor Republicans.

还有人转而指责白宫副幕僚长詹姆斯·布莱尔，他曾暂时离开政府去制定共和党的中期选举策略，其中包括试图重新划分国会选区以利于共和党。

In the end, that redistricting gambit backfired in epic fashion. Out of 14 key districts that got redrawn this cycle, Republicans won just one race in Texas and one race in Tennessee, while Democrats won most races in deep red Texas and Ohio by double digits.

最终，这一选区重划的策略以惨败告终。在本周期重新划分的14个关键选区中，共和党仅在德克萨斯州和田纳西州各赢得一场竞选，而民主党在深红的德克萨斯州和俄亥俄州的大多数竞选中均以两位数的优势获胜。

Blair was already getting flak preemptively as polls ahead of the midterms showed Republicans down even in those races, some of which Trump carried by wide margins in the 2024 presidential election. But with many of the results now final, Blair has become a target, sources say.

在中期选举前的民调显示共和党在这些选区也处于劣势时，布莱尔就已经受到了预先的抨击，而特朗普在2024年总统大选中曾以巨大优势赢下其中一些选区。但消息人士称，随着许多结果尘埃落定，布莱尔已成为众矢之的。

Trump, for his part, spent the latter part of election night blaming the quality of candidates in key battleground races and claiming voters did not support Republicans because he was not on the ballot himself.

就特朗普而言，他在选举之夜的后半段将责任归咎于关键摇摆选区候选人的素质，并声称选民不支持共和党是因为他本人没有参加竞选。

Still, other people in Trump’s orbit have been horrified but unsurprised that the president took no personal responsibility and denied that the devastating GOP losses were effectively a referendum on his second term.

尽管如此，特朗普圈子里的其他人对总统不承担个人责任，并否认共和党的惨败实际上是对他第二个任期的公投感到震惊，但并不意外。

Many of the candidates in key Senate races were people that Trump had chosen and endorsed, including the scandal-plagued Republican state attorney general Ken Paxton in Texas and the inexperienced Darline Graham, sister of the late senator Lindsey Graham, in South Carolina.

许多关键参议院竞选的候选人都是特朗普亲自挑选和背书的，包括德克萨斯州丑闻缠身的共和党州总检察长肯·帕克斯顿，以及南卡罗来纳州缺乏经验的达琳·格雷厄姆（已故参议员林赛·格雷厄姆的妹妹）。

And in North Carolina, the former RNC chair Michael Whatley was defeated resoundingly by the Democratic Roy Cooper—but only after Trump primaried the popular incumbent Thom Tillis earlier this year.

在北卡罗来纳州，前共和党全国委员会主席迈克尔·沃特利被民主党人罗伊·库珀彻底击败——而这发生在他今年早些时候通过初选挤掉受欢迎的现任议员汤姆·提利斯之后。

As for Trump’s claim that he wasn’t on the ballot, that was undercut by the president explicitly telling voters at rallies across the country to pretend that he was, in order to drive turnout. And at those same rallies, some advisers noted, Trump overshadowed his own message by repeatedly talking about record profits of oil companies and his vanity construction projects.

至于特朗普声称他没有参加竞选，这一说法被他自己在全国各地的集会上明确告诉选民“假装他在参选”以提高投票率的行为所削弱。一些顾问指出，在同样的集会上，特朗普反复谈论石油公司的创纪录利润和他那些虚荣的建设项目，反而掩盖了他自己想要传达的信息。

Voters, it’s clear, didn’t like that message.

显然，选民并不喜欢这些信息。

This is an edition of Hugo Lowell’s Inner Loop newsletter. Read previous newsletters here.

这是雨果·洛厄尔的《Inner Loop》通讯。点击此处阅读往期通讯。