美国总统唐纳德·特朗普告诉幕僚，他认为共和党今年11月的中期选举表现仍可能好于预期，似乎不愿面对共和党选情日益恶化的局面。
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.
但幕僚私下承认，特朗普在全国范围内的支持率糟糕得令人震惊。近几周来，白宫首次开始考虑共和党同时失去众议院和参议院多数席位的情形。
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.
一名长期效力于特朗普阵营人士在2024年总统选举前几周便准确预测特朗普将在所有摇摆州获胜。他向 Inner Loop 概括当前形势：“哦，是的，我们会被打得惨败。”《华尔街日报》最近的一项民调显示，特朗普的支持率降至37%，这是自1990年开始进行此类民调以来，任何总统在中期选举前迎来的最低支持率。消息人士称，特朗普较为乐观的判断，部分受到内部民调影响；这些民调显示，共和党在各个众议院议员竞选选区中的落后幅度较小。
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.”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.
白宫发言人戴维斯·英格尔告诉 WIRED：“没有人能否认，特朗普总统已经与‘让爱国的美国再次伟大’运动携手建立了政治历史上最强大的联盟之一。现在的选择从未如此明确：加倍支持特朗普总统制胜且符合常识的议程，或者支持民主党极端自由主义的政策与阻挠。”消息人士称，为应对本轮选举周期对共和党极为不利的政治环境，特朗普团队上月开始寻找可以向选民宣传的外交成果，以鼓励其“让爱国的美国再次伟大”运动基本盘提高投票率。
“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.”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.
这促使特朗普迅速签署了美国与丹麦之间的一项协议，允许更多美军进驻格陵兰，尽管该协议并未实现他长期以来的愿望——由美国接管格陵兰。
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.
特朗普还宣布与委内瑞拉达成石油协议。然而，这项协议可能需要重新谈判，因为它主张对石油生产进行为期100年的特许权，这违反了委内瑞拉禁止此类做法的国家石油法。
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.
但特朗普将外交政策视为决定其遗产的议题，而选民则更关注国内问题，如高昂的食品和汽油价格。
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.
根据AAA的数据，本月柴油价格创下历史新高，普通汽油的全国平均价达到每加仑4.43美元，而特朗普在人工智能监管和数据中心等技术议题上与公众舆论持相反立场。
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.
现在，随着他们的选举机会大幅缩小，特朗普圈子更担心制定应对计划，以应对民主党在国会可能立即发起的大量传票，消息人士称。
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.
大体而言，白宫预计特朗普将主张行政特权和律师-客户保密权——这一旨在保护与律师的机密讨论的基本法律原则——以此为高级助手提供对监督调查的屏障。
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.
律师-客户保密权在涉及政府律师时将被进一步强化，原因是美国最高法院在2024年的所谓特朗普豁免案中裁定，即使是联邦法院也不能“揭开帷幕”审查涉及总统核心决策的讨论。
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.
特朗普第二任期的一个独特之处在于将其私人律师转变为政府律师，形成了一个围绕他本人及其高级助手的持续重叠法律保护网络。
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.
例如，特朗普的前私人律师托德·布兰奇已经出任司法部长。特朗普的许多幕僚过去都由司法部现任三号人物斯坦利·伍德沃德担任律师，而后者也曾是特朗普2024年竞选团队的律师。特朗普的前上诉律师威尔·沙夫最近从白宫职员秘书调任白宫法律顾问，接替特朗普的前律师戴维·沃灵顿。
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.
特朗普的幕僚希望这双重保护措施能让民主党人多年无从下手。他们也有先例：特朗普第一任期担任白宫法律顾问的唐·麦甘，直到特朗普卸任后才就穆勒调查一事到国会作证。
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.
11月3日过后，对大多数美国人来说，中期选举就结束了。但对特朗普的白宫来说，一切才刚刚开始。这是雨果·洛韦尔的《Inner Loop》新闻通讯的一期。
After November 3, the midterms will end in the minds of most Americans. But for Trump’s White House, it’s all just beginning. This is an edition of Hugo Lowell’s Inner Loop newsletter.