MS NOW 的彼得·亚历山大（Peter Alexander）曾担任 NBC 新闻白宫记者近 15 年，他对唐纳德·特朗普总统新任白宫新闻秘书凯蒂·扎卡里亚（Katie Zacharia）所举行的、被他称为“MAGA Inc.”新闻发布会作出了回应，并指出了他认为她在首次简报中遗漏的“关键问题”。
MS NOW’s Peter Alexander who served as NBC News’ White House correspondent for almost 15 years, reacted to what he called a “MAGA Inc.” news conference from President Donald Trump’s new White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia and shared the “key question” he said was missing from her first briefing.
在扎卡里亚登台发言的头几分钟里，这位在加入政府前鲜为人知的保守派评论员及特朗普旗下某公司雇员，就总统中期选举集会的观众人数大加炫耀。
Within her first few minutes on the podium, Zacharia, who before joining the administration was a little-known conservative commentator and employee of one of Trump’s companies, boasted about the crowd size at the president’s midterm rallies.
亚历山大表示：“这与其说是一场白宫新闻发布会，不如说是一场由超级政治行动委员会（super PAC）‘MAGA Inc.’举办的新闻发布会。”他还补充说，扎卡里亚的言论可被视为“政治表态”，违反了联邦法律——该法律禁止联邦雇员在执勤期间参与党派政治活动。
“This may as well have been a MAGA Inc. — the super PAC — press briefing taking place there, as opposed to a White House press briefing,” said Alexander, adding that Zacharia’s comments could be seen as “political statements” in violation of a federal law that restricts federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity while on duty.
周二上午扎卡里亚结束简报后不久，他对 MS NOW 的斯蒂芬妮·鲁尔（Stephanie Ruhle）说：“大家会记得，以往的新闻秘书通常会刻意强调自己不想违反《哈奇法案》（Hatch Act）。他们不想搞政治……但她显然是在无人要求的情况下这么做的。”作为 MS NOW 节目《State of Play》的主持人，亚历山大表示，他预测包括自己在内的许多记者，在简报结束后打的第一通电话，都会是向负责执行《哈奇法案》的特别顾问办公室（Office of Special Counsel）打去。
“You’ll remember past press secretaries would often go out of their way to say they didn’t want to violate the Hatch Act,” he told MS NOW’s Stephanie Ruhle shortly after Zacharia wrapped up her briefing on Tuesday morning. “They didn’t want to be politicking. … She obviously did it without solicitation.”Alexander, host of MS NOW’s “State of Play,” said he predicted that the “first call” many reporters, including himself, would make after the briefing was to the Office of Special Counsel, which enforces the Hatch Act.
这位白宫资深记者指出，扎卡里亚在简报会上仅接受了三家媒体——Breitbart、Fox News和《每日邮报》——的提问。但他表示，令他惊讶的是，被提问的记者中没有人“提出那种在几乎每一次新闻秘书首次亮相时都会问到的根本性问题”。
While the veteran White House reporter noted that Zacharia took questions from only three outlets during the briefing — Breitbart, Fox News and the Daily Mail — he said he was struck that no one who was called upon “did what has been done in almost every one of the cases where a press secretary showed up for the first time, which is ask a very fundamental question.”
亚历山大称，这个问题是：这位新闻秘书是否认为该职位的“首要职责”是“推动”总统的利益，还是“致力于向美国人民揭示未经修饰的真相”。
That question, according to Alexander, is whether the press secretary views the position’s “primary role” as “promoting” the president’s interests or being “committed to providing the unvarnished truth to the American people.”
他解释说：“多年来，记者们一直提出这个关键问题，其目的主要是向美国人民表明，这位将代表总统和行政部门发言的人，清楚地认识到自己的首要任务是追求真相，而非其他任何事。但这次这个问题并没有被提出。”亚历山大还表示，在他报道白宫的整个职业生涯中，他见证了“这个房间里记者群体的不断变化”。在特朗普第二个任期的初期，他的政府为独立记者、播客主理人和社交媒体意见领袖设立了一个“新媒体”席位。
“It’s a key question that’s been done by reporters for years to basically make clear to the American people that this person who is going to be speaking on behalf of the president, on behalf of the administration, recognizes that their first job is to the truth before anything else,” he explained. “That didn’t get asked.”Alexander said that over the course of his career covering the White House, he has witnessed the “changing face of the reporters in that room.”Early in Trump’s second term, his administration created a “new media” seat for independent journalists, podcasters and social media influencers.
因此，亚历山大说，如今这个经过重组的记者团中，“意见领袖和谄媚者”的数量远多于“那些认识到自己的职责首先是追求事实，而非为任何党派服务的传统记者”。“我认为，这恰恰是比任何其他东西都更令人遗憾的失落之处，”他补充道。
As a result, Alexander said, the transformed press pool now has “so many more influencers and sycophants” than “traditional journalists who recognize their advocacy is for the facts before it’s for either party.”“And I think that’s sadly what’s lost more than anything else,” he added. The post Peter Alexander says a ‘key question’ was missing from Zacharia’s first briefing