特朗普周三醒来时已陷入重重围困。他本就处于联邦法院的钳制之中——这些法院已拖慢了他的议程——如今又要面对一个历史上权力强大的、即将上任的民主党国会多数派，后者急于将手中的法槌和传票权对准这位长期折磨他们的人。
Trump awakens Wednesday boxed in. Already in the pincer grip of federal courts that have slowed his agenda, he now faces a historically powerful incoming Democratic majority in Congress, eager to turn their gavels and subpoena power on their longtime tormentor.
而在他与他们对峙的同时，一批新的共和党人正试图取代他，成为他们政党的领袖。华盛顿特朗普时代的最后一章就这样开始了。
And he’ll face them down while a new crop of Republicans seeks to eclipse him as the leader of their party. This is how the last chapter of the Trump era in Washington begins.
对特朗普而言，这是一个陌生的处境。十年来，他一直试图塑造不可战胜的形象；在第二任期的头两年里，他主张前所未有的行政权力，而共和党控制的国会几乎没有对他形成制约。随着共和党失利不断累积，他试图用一条社交媒体帖子来挽回这一声誉。
For Trump, it’s an unfamiliar position. He has spent a decade seeking to project invincibility and has spent the first two years of his second term asserting unprecedented executive power with little pushback from a Republican-controlled Congress. He sought to salvage that reputation with a social media post as Republican losses piled up.
“我并不在选票上，如果我在，我们会以压倒性优势获胜！”他周二晚间写道。这算不上对陷入危机的政党的什么慰藉。
“I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” he wrote Tuesday night. Not exactly a salve for a party in crisis.
民主党人也面临一个选择：他们愿意投入多少调查力量和政治资本去调查一个被削弱的特朗普。该党仍将特朗普视为一个有用的、能凝聚人心的靶子。他们的一些新当选议员曾试探性地提出第三次弹劾他的想法，尽管民主党领导人尚未承诺走这条路。
Democrats also face a choice: how much of their investigative muscle and political capital are they willing to spend investigating a weakened Trump. The party continues to see Trump as a useful, unifying foil. Some of their incoming members have flirted with seeking to impeach him a third time, though Democratic leaders have not committed to that course.
然而，如果说对众议院的意图还有任何疑问，众议员罗伯特·加西亚——预计将领导众议院监督委员会——很快就消除了它。
If there was any doubt about the House’s intent, however, Rep. Robert Garcia — expected to lead the House Oversight Committee — erased it quickly.
“找律师吧，”加西亚周二晚间在X上发帖写道，就在各新闻机构开始预测民主党将赢得众议院之际。加西亚和其他众议院盟友已提出了一项强有力的调查议程，目标是他们所称的特朗普的腐败和涉嫌自我敛财、滥用行政权力、为与政治和金钱有关系的人不当使用赦免权，以及他决定授权移民和海关执法局主导大规模驱逐行动。
“LAWYER UP,” Garcia posted on X Tuesday night, just as news outlets began calling the House for Democrats. Garcia and other House allies have projected a muscular investigative agenda aimed at what they have described as Trump’s corruption and alleged self-enrichment, his abuses of executive power, his misuse of pardons for the politically and financially connected and his decision to empower ICE to lead a mass deportation campaign.
特朗普从不主动让出聚光灯，也从来不需要这样做。在周二之前，他最脆弱的时刻是2021年——当时他的支持者冲击国会大厦后不久，共和党领导人似乎准备抛弃他。但由于他在政治上仍有生命力，那些领导人很快又回到了他的阵营，帮助策划了他的回归，并击退了弹劾和一连串刑事指控。
Trump has never willingly ceded the spotlight — and has never needed to. Before Tuesday, he was at his weakest point in 2021, shortly after a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol and Republican leaders seemed poised to abandon him. But because he remained politically viable, those leaders quickly returned to the fold, helping engineer his return to power and beat back impeachment and a fusillade of criminal charges.
然而现在，特朗普已没有政治未来，他正处于民选任期的最后两年。正是在这种背景下，他在周二释放了罕见的和解姿态。
Now, though, there is no political future for Trump, who is in his final two years of elected office. And it was in that context that he signaled a rare conciliatory approach Tuesday.
“我们将与民主党人合作，确保国家事务顺利推进，”他在接受《政治报》的达莎·伯恩斯在《政治报》选举直播节目采访时说。“我不想在这里坐上两年，只是否决一切。”
“We’re going to work with the Democrats to make sure things go well for our country,” he said in an interview with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns on POLITICO Elections Live. “I don’t want to sit here for two years just vetoing everything.”