执政近四年，特朗普如何看待自己的白宫生涯？
Instead of Evolving as President, Trump Has Bent the Job to His Will
PETER BAKER
2020年8月28日
WASHINGTON — For a man on the edge of history, President Trump sounded calm and relaxed. If he believes that he is on the verge of losing, he betrayed no sign of it. Instead, he trotted out one of his favorite polls, boasted about his popularity with Republican voters and talked about his convention’s television ratings.
华盛顿——作为一个站在历史边缘的人，特朗普总统听上去平静且放松。如果他认为自己即将输掉大选，那他不但丝毫没有表现出来，反而把他自己最喜欢的民调之一拿出来炫耀，吹嘘自己在共和党选民中的受欢迎程度，谈论他的大会的收视率。
His presidency, he declared in an interview this week, has produced “an incredible result.” The stock markets are “pretty amazing,” the Republican National Convention has been “very successful,” and he has “done a very good job” of handling the coronavirus pandemic even though more than 180,000 Americans are dead. At the same time, he said, he has endured “terrible things” by his “maniac” opponents.
在本周的一次采访中，他宣布自己的总统任期带来了“令人难以置信的结果”。股市“相当棒”，共和党全国大会也“非常成功”，而且他在处理冠状病毒大流行方面“做得非常好”，即便有超过18万美国人死亡。同时，他说，他还经受了“疯子”政敌做出的“可怕事情”。
After nearly four years in office, Mr. Trump heads into the fall campaign with a striking blend of braggadocio and grievance, a man of extremes who claims one moment to have accomplished more than virtually any other president even as he complains moments later that he has also suffered more than any of them. He inhabits a world of his own making, sometimes untethered from the reality recognized by others. He has imposed his will on Washington and the world like no one else.
执政近四年后，特朗普带着明显的自夸与不满混杂的情绪走向秋季竞选。他是一个极端的人，一会儿宣称自己的成就超过其他总统，过一会儿又抱怨称他比其他总统遭受的痛苦都多。他栖身于一个自己一手造就的世界里，这个世界有时候不受其他人所认可的现实所束缚。他将自己的意志强加于华盛顿和这个世界，这是其他人都没有做过的。
While previous presidents evolved in office as they learned the mechanisms of power and adjusted their goals by the time they claimed renomination, Mr. Trump remains the same polarizing, dominating force of nature who got up four years ago and asserted that “I alone can fix it.” He has not tempered with age nor bent to convention nor been chastened by impeachment. He says he still considers himself “an outsider” even while occupying the highest office in the land.
此前总统都在执政期间伴随着对权力机制的了解而逐渐进步，并且到了再次获得提名之时，会调整自己的目标，而特朗普却依然如故，是一股两极化、强势的自然力量，在四年前崛起，断言“我单枪匹马就能解决问题”。他既没有因为年纪变得温和起来，也没有屈从于惯例，更没有被弹劾磨平棱角。即便坐在这个国度最高的职位上，他还是说他认为自己是个“局外人”。
In the course of a 40-minute telephone call on Wednesday, Mr. Trump struggled to describe how he has changed. “I think I’ve just become more guarded than I was four years ago,” he offered, a curious notion for the least-guarded man to sit in the Oval Office in a lifetime. “I think I really am a little bit more circumspect.”
在周三一场40分钟的电话采访中，特朗普努力描述自己如何发生了改变。“我认为和四年前相比，我变得更谨慎了，”他提出，对于坐在椭圆形办公室里最为不谨慎的人来说，这一想法很是稀奇。“我认为我真的是更慎重了。”
By that he seemed to mean that he had hardened after the many investigations and political attacks that have characterized his presidency. But he is not one for introspection. How would he be different in a second term? Really not much at all. “I think I’d be similar,” he said. Which is exactly what his supporters want and his opponents fear.
他似乎指的是在其任内多次遭到调查和政治攻击之后，他变得更老练了。但他并非一个会内省的人。他怎么会在第二个任期上变得不一样呢？确实不会变化太多。“我应该会和现在差不多，”他说。而这一点，正是其支持者想要、其政敌担忧的。
Beyond more of the same, he has strained lately to define what his second-term agenda would be. Asked at various points, even by friendly interviewers on Fox News, he has offered meandering answers. His fellow Republicans seem no more certain. They therefore dispensed with a party platform altogether, opting instead for a simple resolution of loyalty to the president.
除了保持原样之外，他近期也一直在紧张地定义其第二个任期的议程会是什么。当在好几个场合被问到时，即便发问者是来自福克斯新闻(Fox News)的友好采访者，他都给出了不知所云的答案。他的共和党同仁似乎不再那么确定了。于是他们索性不要党纲，而是选择一个更为简单的解决方案——对总统效忠。
In the interview, Mr. Trump rattled off a list of what he has done and would continue to do, like increasing military spending, cutting taxes, eliminating regulations, reinforcing the border and appointing conservative judges.
在采访中，特朗普噼里啪啦地说出了一长串他已经做过，以及将继续做的事情，例如增加军费开支、减税、消除监管、加强边境管制并任命保守派法官。
“But so I think, I think it would be, I think it would be very, very, I think we’d have a very, very solid, we would continue what we’re doing, we’d solidify what we’ve done, and we have other things on our plate that we want to get done,” he said.
“但是，所以我认为，我认为这将会非常非常，我认为我们会有一个非常非常稳固的，我们会继续我们现在做的事情，我们要巩固我们所做的事情，我们还有其他要完成的事情，”他说。
If he does win, his agenda to a significant degree may be set by external forces. He faces three overlapping crises buffeting the United States — the pandemic that still kills roughly 1,000 people every day, the resulting economic slowdown that idled another one million people just last week and the unrest touched off by a string of police shootings of Black Americans, most recently in Kenosha, Wis.
如果他真的获胜，他的议程很大程度上可能取决于外部力量。当前他面临困扰美国的三重危机——大流行仍然造成每天约1000人死亡；由此导致经济放缓，上周又有一百万人失业；此外还有一连串警察枪杀美国黑人的事件所引发的动荡，最近一次是在威斯康辛州的基诺沙市。
Mr. Trump has all but put the pandemic behind him while arguing that he is best suited to rebuild the economy. In responding to the debate over racial justice, he has characteristically sought confrontation rather than calm, disparaging the Black Lives Matter movement, blaming street violence on what he calls radical Democrats and presenting himself as a stalwart defender of the police.
特朗普几乎把大流行抛在脑后，同时声称他本人最适合重建经济。在回应有关种族公正的辩论时，他一贯寻求对抗而不是冷静，蔑视“黑人的命也是命”(Black Lives Matter)运动，将街头暴力归咎于他所称的激进民主党人，并把自己塑造成警察的坚定捍卫者。
Four years after his against-the-odds victory, he has claimed the nomination as the undisputed master of a party whose establishment did not want him. Those who stood against him have since been purged or have departed or have defected to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic presidential nominee. It has given Mr. Trump a unified convention and a party remade in his image to the delight of supporters who see him as their champion against an entitled, politically correct elite.
在以微弱优势获胜四年后，他以党内无可争议的领袖身份获得提名，虽然这个政党的建制派曾经并不想要他。反对他的人或被清洗、或已离开，或已投靠前副总统、民主党总统候选人小约瑟夫·R·拜登(Joseph R. Biden Jr.)。这给特朗普带来了一个统一的大会，以及一个按照他的形象重新塑造的政党，这让支持者们感到高兴，他们把特朗普视为自己的捍卫者，反抗自命不凡、主张政治正确的精英阶层。
“He’s going to be accepting the nomination as somebody who previously was an outsider doing a hostile takeover of the party,” Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, said last week in an interview. “He’s still an outsider, but he’s built a band of outsiders with him. The hostile takeover he started four years ago is now complete.”
“他将以一个曾对共和党进行敌意接管的局外人身份接受提名。”贾里德·库什纳(Jared Kushner)上周接受采访时表示，“他仍然是个局外人，但他已经为自己建立了一个局外人的团队。他四年前开始的敌意接管现在已经完成。”
The hostile takeover may be over, but the hostility is not. Mr. Trump hardly goes a day without getting into a battle on Twitter or on camera with some perceived foe. While many see him as the instigator, he sees himself as the victim.
敌意接管可能结束了，但敌意还没有结束。特朗普几乎每天都会在Twitter或镜头前与某个被他视为敌人的人展开较量。虽然很多人认为是他挑起，但他认为自己是受害者。
Anyone who has watched the arc of Mr. Trump’s career in business, entertainment and politics should hardly be surprised. The thrice-married scion of a real estate family loved nothing more than a splashy ribbon-cutting and a sizzling tabloid item. As a reality television star, he moved beyond his bankruptcies to rebrand himself as the emblem of success. At every stage, he courted controversy, played on racial divisions and brushed off multiple accusations of sexual misconduct, including even lewd descriptions of women caught on tape.
任何关注过特朗普在商业、娱乐和政治领域职业生涯的人都不应该感到惊讶。这位结过三次婚的地产大亨世家子弟最喜欢的就是华丽剪彩和热门小报。作为电视真人秀明星，他摆脱了破产的阴影，将自己重塑为成功的象征。在每个阶段，他都制造争议，利用种族分歧，还能摆脱关于不当性行为的多项指控，甚至包括以下流口吻描述女性的录音。
He arrived at the White House in January 2017 as the first president never to have served a day in political office or the military and had little time for business as usual — or even the traditions and laws that bind a commander in chief. After a lifetime as a smash-mouth celebrity, he became a smash-mouth president. At 74, he turns to the same litany of political tactics he always has, just as he relies on the same vocabulary (“tremendous,” “incredible,” “nasty,” “believe me,” “winning,” “loser,” “disgusting,” “disgrace”).
他于2017年1月抵达白宫，成为第一位从未担任公职或军职的总统，他几乎不会像以往的总统一样处理事务——甚至也不怎么遵守约束三军统帅的传统和法律。他一生都是夸夸其谈的名人，现在又成了夸夸其谈的总统。74岁的他又开始使用他一贯使用的那一套政治策略，还有那一套常用的词汇（“巨大的”、“难以置信的”、“肮脏的”、“相信我”、“胜利”、“失败者”、“恶心的”、“可耻”）。
At his first Republican National Convention, Mr. Trump called himself “the law-and-order candidate,” much as he planned to do again on Thursday night. When it looked like he would lose in 2016, he claimed the election was being “rigged,” a word he recycled this year while trailing Mr. Biden in the polls. Just this week, he challenged Mr. Biden to take a drug test, much as he demanded that his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, do last time.
在他的第一次共和党全国大会上，特朗普说自己是“法律与秩序的候选人”，他计划在周四晚上再一次这么说。当他在2016年似乎要输掉大选时，他声称选举被“操纵”了，今年他在民调中落后于拜登时再次使用了这个词。就在本周，他要求拜登进行药检，上一次他也曾要求民主党对手希拉里·克林顿(Hillary Clinton)这样做。
Mr. Trump’s advisers said his refusal to bow to the Washington establishment distinguishes him from the rest of the political class. “If you think about it, Washington usually absorbs people,” Mr. Kushner said. “They come to town and they go to the cocktail parties and they go to the donor circles. Trump is one of the few people who hasn’t changed.”
特朗普的顾问们表示，特朗普拒绝向华盛顿建制派低头，这使他有别于政治阶层里的其他人。“仔细想想，华盛顿通常会吞噬人们，”库什纳说。“他们来到城里，参加鸡尾酒会，搞筹款社交。特朗普是少数几个没有改变的人之一。”
“Instead of trying to change to get along with people,” Mr. Kushner added, “he’s doubled and tripled down on the promises that he’s made, and I think he has more conviction. There’s not a single policy where you have a question about where he stands.”
“他没有试图改变自己，与他人和睦相处，”库什纳还说，“他还双倍、三倍兑现自己的承诺，我认为他更有信念。没有任何一项政策能让你质疑他的立场。”
Mr. Trump has refused to adapt to the presidency, forcing it to adapt to him. When he took over, he started his days in the Oval Office around 9 a.m., but then complained to aides that he was working 12 hours a day and that “this is way too much.” Schedulers changed the routine so that his first meeting in the Oval Office rarely starts before 11 a.m., letting him watch television and make calls from the residence in the morning.
特朗普拒绝适应总统职位，而是迫使别人反过来迁就他。上任后，他原本早上9点左右开始在椭圆形办公室工作，但之后他向助手抱怨，自己每天要工作12个小时，“这太过分了”。日程安排人员只得改变规矩，他在椭圆形办公室的第一次会议很少有在上午11点之前开始的，这样他就可以在早上看电视，从官邸打电话。
His staff grows frustrated when he sometimes does not show up until 11:30 a.m. or even later. But he has little respect for the schedule, turning a 15-minute meeting into a 45-minute session. When he has had enough, he bangs his open-palmed hands on his desk twice to signal that a meeting is over.
有时候他要到上午11点半才露面，甚至更晚，这让工作人员越来越抓狂。但他根本不管日程表上是怎么安排的，15分钟的会议能拖到45分钟。不想再开了，他就张开手掌在桌子上拍两下，表示会议结束了。
The president’s free-form style leaves aides scrambling. While phone calls with previous presidents were highly orchestrated affairs, Mr. Trump loves nothing more than to spontaneously call friends, lawmakers or people he just saw on Fox News.
总统随心所欲的风格令助手们手忙脚乱。前任总统的通话都是经过精心安排的，特朗普最喜欢的还是随性地给朋友、议员，或者刚在福克斯新闻频道上看到的人打电话。
Certain allies have instant access. When the Fox media mogul Rupert Murdoch once called while Mr. Trump was on the phone with his eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, his secretary, Madeleine Westerhout, asked if she should tell Mr. Murdoch that the president would call back. Mr. Trump “erupted like Mount St. Helens,” Ms. Westerhout recalled in a new memoir. “Never put Rupert Murdoch on hold!” he shouted. “Never!”
某些盟友的来电他会马上接。有一次，在他跟大女儿伊万卡·特朗普(Ivanka Trump)通话时，媒体大亨——福克斯的鲁珀特·默多克(Rupert Murdoch)来电，于是秘书马德琳·韦斯特豪特(Madeleine Westerhout)问，她是否应该告诉默多克，总统会给他回电。特朗普“像圣海伦火山一样爆发了”，韦斯特豪特在新出版的回忆录中回忆道。“永远不要让鲁珀特·默多克等！”他喊道。“绝对不可以！”
Mr. Trump burns through staff faster than any president has in modern times. He has had four chiefs of staff, four national security advisers and four press secretaries in less than four years. Some of his harshest critics are people who once worked for him and emerge with tales of an erratic, reckless president who lies profusely, has trouble processing information and subordinates national interest to self-interest, as John R. Bolton, his former national security adviser, wrote in his own book.
特朗普解雇手下的速度，比现代历史上的任何一位总统都要快。在不到四年的时间里，他换了四名幕僚长、四名国家安全顾问，以及四名新闻秘书。他最严厉的批评者当中，有一些曾经为他工作，总统反覆无常、行事鲁莽，爱撒谎，缺乏情报处理能力，并且将私利置于国家利益之上的说法渐渐传播开，正如他的前国家安全顾问约翰·R·博尔顿(John R. Bolton)在书中写的那样。
But Mr. Trump rejected the portrayal of him as a lazy, television-obsessed president. “Just the opposite,” he said. “I don’t watch very much TV. Nobody knows what I do.” He said: “I work very long hours, actually, very long hours, probably longer than just about anybody. And I think more importantly, I think I work effectively.”
但特朗普很不喜欢自己被描绘成一个懒惰的、爱看电视的总统。“恰恰相反，”他说。“我并不怎么看电视。没人知道我在做什么。”他说：“我工作时间很长，实际上，很长很长，大概比任何人都长。而且我认为更重要的是，我认为自己的工作效率很高。”
His worst moments since taking office, he said, were the day he was impeached — unfairly, in his mind — and the night that Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, cast the key vote dooming a Republican effort to revoke President Barack Obama’s health care program. He acknowledged at the time that the job was harder than he had expected.
他说，上任以来最糟糕的时刻，是他被弹劾的那一天——在他看来，这是很不公平的——以及亚利桑纳州共和党参议员约翰·麦凯恩投下关键性一票，导致共和党废除奥巴马总统医保计划的努力失败的那一天。他承认，这份工作比他料想的要困难。
Now he says it is harder because of the attacks he endures. “It’s harder because I’ve had two jobs,” he said — being president and “I have to also constantly defend myself from a group of maniacs that are totally, that have, you know, that have gone totally off the tracks.”
他说，现在更难了，因为他得忍受各种攻击。“这更为困难了，因为我有两份工作要做，”他说——当总统，以及“我还必须要一直保护自己，免受一群疯子的攻击，你知道，他们是完全疯了。”
Given that, did he ever think about not running for a second term? “I never even considered that,” he said. He said he was ready for four more years: “I feel good. I think I feel better than I did four years ago.”
既然如此，他有没有想过不竞选第二个任期？“我从来没有考虑过这个问题，”他说。他表示自己已经准备好再干四年：“我感觉很好。我感觉比四年前好多了。”
