今天，对于本专栏的常客或偶尔阅读的读者，以及第一次收听收看的朋友们，我只有一个请求。在继续往下读之前，请先把你们的党派立场放在一边。暂时忘掉政治，想一想我们上周——仅10月11日到18日这一周——从特朗普白宫看到的那些令人震惊的管理不善案例。事实不会说谎。第一，特朗普总统本人任命凯蒂·扎卡里亚为新的白宫新闻秘书。
Today, for regular or occasional readers of this column, and for those of you tuning in for the first time, I only have only one request. Before reading any further, please put your partisanship on hold. Forget about politics for the moment and consider shocking cases of mismanagement we saw last week alone from the Trump White House between Oct. 11 and Oct. 18. The facts do not lie. First, President Trump himself named Katie Zacharia the new White House press secretary.
她主持了一场灾难性的15分钟新闻发布会。她只干了整整五天。特朗普只能怪他自己。与前新闻秘书卡罗琳·莱维特宣布卸任后的两个月里其他潜在人选不同，扎卡里亚从未接受过该职位的面试或审查。她自称是律师，但她不是。她律师资格考试没通过。她此前也没有任何新闻从业经验，除了偶尔在福克斯新闻露面。对特朗普来说，这就足以让她得到这份工作——据报道，此举遭到了幕僚长苏西·威尔斯的反对。
She gave one disastrous 15-minute press briefing. She lasted all of five days. Trump has no one to blame but himself. Unlike other potential candidates, during the two months since former press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced she was stepping down, Zacharia was never interviewed or vetted for the job. She called herself a lawyer, which she’s not. She flunked her bar exam. She also had no prior journalism experience, other than occasional appearances on Fox News. For Trump, that was enough to give her the job — reportedly over the objections of chief of staff Susie Wiles.
这是一次重大的自找的难堪。第二，据报道，在高层幕僚的反对下，特朗普宣布支持国防部长皮特·赫格塞思的计划，即公开电视直播2009年胡德堡枪击案凶手、前美国陆军精神病学家尼达尔·哈桑的枪决行刑。他在“真实社交”上写道，这将是“对世界的强力威慑，让世人看看美国如何对付恐怖分子和哈桑这样的渣滓”。
One major self-inflicted embarrassment. Second, reportedly over the objections of top staffers, Trump announced his support for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plan to publicly televise the firing squad execution of 2009 Fort Hood shooter and former U.S. Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan. It would be, he wrote on Truth Social, “a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan.”
特朗普没有补充的是，这还将使美国与伊朗和阿富汗为伍——这两个是2025年仅有的另外两个执行过公开处决的国家。特朗普的宣布立即引发了激烈反应。国会中的共和党和民主党人都谴责该计划。80%的美国人表示反对。负责监督美国军队天主教徒牧灵服务的天主教大主教敦促天主教徒不要参与行刑队。
It would also, Trump did not add, put the United States in the company of Iran and Afghanistan, the only other countries which carried out public executions in 2025. The response to Trump’s announcement was immediate and fierce. Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress condemned the plan. Eighty percent of Americans expressed their opposition. The archbishop who oversees the Catholic Church’s pastoral services to Catholics in the U.S. military urged Catholics not to take part in the firing squad.
副总统JD·万斯表示他不会看。几天后，面对强烈反弹，特朗普取消了直播，但在此之前，他已经给自己造成了第三次自伤。9月18日，在椭圆形办公室一场精心安排的仪式上，他将《2026年林赛·O·格雷厄姆制裁俄罗斯和伊朗法案》签署成为法律，因俄罗斯持续对乌克兰作战而对俄实施新制裁和关税。特朗普称赞该法案是对格雷厄姆的追授致敬——格雷厄姆是他在参议院的第一号支持者。
Vice President JD Vance said he wouldn’t watch it. A few days later, stung by the backlash, Trump cancelled the livestream, but not before handing himself a third self-inflicted wound. On Sept. 18, in an elaborate Oval Office ceremony, he had signed into law the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, imposing new sanctions and tariffs on Russia for its continued war against Ukraine. Trump hailed the act, which passed the House in a lopsided, bipartisan 262-159 vote, as a posthumous tribute to Graham, his No. 1 supporter in the Senate.
该法案此前在众议院以262票对159票的压倒性两党投票获得通过。然而在10月16日，即新制裁生效前两天，特朗普签署了一项行政命令，使其彻底失去效力，与俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京达成协议，由俄罗斯向美国出售柴油。反弹再次汹涌而至。共和党参议员指责特朗普背叛了他们和格雷厄姆。批评者指出，特朗普是在为普京提供资金，以继续其对乌克兰的战争——请记住，特朗普曾承诺在上任第一天就结束这场战争。
Yet on Oct. 16, two days before the new sanctions were to take effect, Trump signed an executive order taking all teeth out of them, making a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin for Russia to sell diesel fuel to the U.S. Again, the backlash was furious. Republican senators accused Trump of betraying them and Graham. Critics pointed out that Trump was providing Putin with funding to continue his war against Ukraine — a war, remember, Trump promised to end on Day One.
此外，特朗普与普京协议的第一批交付量，只能为美国人提供不到半天的平均柴油消费量。特朗普-普京协议的全部三批交付量加起来，也只能为美国人提供不到两周的燃料。这是一笔糟糕的交易，也是又一次巨大的难堪。第四，或许也是最离奇的：在发布一名精神病男子爬入英国一家动物园的老虎围栏并被咬死的视频数小时后，特朗普发布了一段AI生成的视频，内容是他在与一只老虎搏斗，当然，还把它摔得服服帖帖。
Moreover, the first installment of Trump’s Putin deal would only provide Americans with less than half a day of average diesel consumption. All three installments in the Trump-Putin agreement would provide Americans with less than two weeks of fuel. It was a rotten deal and another big embarrassment. Fourth, and perhaps most bizarrely, hours after posting video of a mentally ill man climbing into a tiger enclosure in an English zoo and getting mauled to death, Trump released an AI-generated video of himself wrestling with a tiger and, of course, tackling it into submission.
受害者的英国家属指责特朗普公开他们儿子惨死视频的做法残忍，而美国人则对特朗普发布假视频究竟想传递什么信息感到困惑不解。现在，我要提醒你：这些仅仅是特朗普在10月11日至10月18日之间做出的令人震惊的举动。
The victim’s British family accused Trump of cruelty by publicly releasing video of their son’s gruesome death, while Americans were left scratching their head over what message Trump was trying to send by posting fake videos. Now, I remind you: These are only shocking actions taken by Trump between Oct. 11 and Oct. 18.
这无关乎他发动一场毫无意义、持续不断的对伊朗战争，试图把报道他不喜欢的记者赶出白宫，拆除白宫东翼，关闭肯尼迪中心，以及用纳税人的钱投放非法的、自我宣传的电视广告。再说一遍，抛开任何党派偏见，你必须承认：特朗普已经失控了。如果任何一位首席执行官这样经营他的公司，他还没来得及打开自己的黄金降落伞就会被解雇。比尔·普雷斯是《比尔·普雷斯播客》的主持人。他是《来自左翼：身处交叉火力中的一生》一书的作者。
This isn't about his waging a pointless, ongoing war with Iran, trying to kick reporters whose stories he doesn’t like out of the White House, tearing down the East Wing of the White House, shutting down the Kennedy Center, and running illegal, self-promotional television ads paid for by taxpayers. Again, putting any partisanship aside, you must admit: Trump is out of control. If any CEO ran his company like this, he’d be fired before he could open his golden parachute. Bill Press is host of The Bill Press Pod. He is the author of “From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire."