唐纳德·特朗普总统的助手们因周二晚共和党惨败的规模而感到震惊，但他们几乎立即开始琢磨该怪罪谁。
President Donald Trump’s aides were reeling from the scale of Republican losses on Tuesday night, but they almost immediately began figuring out who to blame.
官员们仅在私下承认，最终责任在于特朗普，是他将国家拖入了一场不得人心的对伊朗战争，推高了物价，这成了选民最关心的头号议题。
The ultimate responsibility, officials acknowledged only in private, lay with Trump for taking the country into an unpopular war with Iran that drove up prices, which became the number one issue for voters.
但由于无法公开指责特朗普，寻找替罪羊的压力与日俱增，目标指向各处，从内阁官员到白宫助手，再到保守派媒体评论员。
But in the absence of being able to blame Trump publicly, there has been growing pressure to find scapegoats in all places, from cabinet officials to White House aides to conservative media commentators.
回顾 2006 年共和党两院皆失、时任总统乔治·W·布什解职国防部长唐纳德·拉姆斯菲尔德的先例，消息人士称，愤怒的官员和捐赠者期待特朗普采取类似举动。
Recalling how then-president George W. Bush pushed out defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld after the GOP lost both chambers in 2006, sources say there is an expectation from furious officials and donors for Trump to do something similar.
消息人士说，特朗普似乎尚未决定是否这么做，部分原因在于他意识到，或许他的幕僚根本无力阻挡民主党取得如此压倒性的胜利。
Trump does not seem to have made up his mind on whether he should, sources say, in part because of a recognition that there was perhaps not much that his staff could have done to stave off such overwhelming Democratic victories.
消息人士告诉《内部圈子》，最近也有人建议他，最好让核心幕僚留在“帐篷”里，以确保他们明年若收到国会调查人员的传票时仍保持忠诚。
He has also been advised recently, sources tell Inner Loop, that it may be better to keep top staff inside the proverbial tent to ensure they remain loyal in the event they receive subpoenas from congressional investigators next year.
尽管如此，围绕特朗普的一些人已率先受到审视，他们被视为曾鼓励总统继续对伊朗作战，即使这场战争在中期选举前几个月就已开始拖累民调。
Still, some early scrutiny has been cast on people around Trump who have been viewed as encouraging the president to continue the Iran war even as it started to drag down polls months before the midterms.
部分审视指向国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯，他一直是谣言攻击的目标，指称他不断呈报乐观的军事前景，误导特朗普认为更多打击就能赢得战争。
Some scrutiny has been directed at defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who has been the target of a whisper campaign that he kept presenting rosy military outlooks that misled Trump into believing more strikes could win the war.
消息人士称，这些汇报过于乐观，以至于包括副总统 J·D·万斯和国务卿马可·鲁比奥在内的多位高层官员，今春开始要求各自获取情报简报，以获得对局势更冷峻的评估。国防部没有立即回复置评请求。
The presentations had been so glowing, sources say, that a number of top officials, including vice president JD Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio this spring started requesting their own intelligence briefings to get a more somber assessment of the situation. The Department of Defense did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
在其他方面，特朗普的顾问们对保守派媒体评论员感到愤怒，他们认为这些评论员鼓励总统在战争陷入霍尔木兹海峡僵局后仍然强硬到底。
In other quarters, Trump advisers have been furious with conservative media commentators who they see as having encouraged the president to double down on the war even after it became mired in a stalemate over the Strait of Hormuz.
还有人再次指责白宫副幕僚长詹姆斯·布莱尔，他曾暂时离开政府制定共和党中期选举策略，其中包括重划国会选区地图以利于共和党的努力。
And still others returned to blaming White House deputy chief of staff James Blair, who temporarily left the administration to develop the GOP midterm strategy, including an effort to redraw congressional maps to favor Republicans.
最终，这一重划选区的赌注以史无前例的方式适得其反。在本周期重划的14个关键选区中，共和党仅在得克萨斯州赢得一场比赛、在田纳西州赢得一场比赛，而民主党在深红的得克萨斯州和俄亥俄州以两位数优势赢得了大多数比赛。
In the end, that redistricting gambit backfired in epic fashion. Out of 14 key districts that got redrawn this cycle, Republicans won just one race in Texas and one race in Tennessee, while Democrats won most races in deep red Texas and Ohio by double digits.
在中期选举前的民调显示共和党甚至在这些比赛中落后、其中一些选区特朗普在2024年总统大选中曾以大幅优势拿下时，布莱尔就已经预先遭到抨击。但随着许多结果现在已成定局，消息人士称，布莱尔已成为攻击目标。
Blair was already getting flak preemptively as polls ahead of the midterms showed Republicans down even in those races, some of which Trump carried by wide margins in the 2024 presidential election. But with many of the results now final, Blair has become a target, sources say.
特朗普本人则在选举夜的后半段指责关键战场州候选人的素质，并声称选民不支持共和党是因为他本人不在选票上。
Trump, for his part, spent the latter part of election night blaming the quality of candidates in key battleground races and claiming voters did not support Republicans because he was not on the ballot himself.
尽管如此，特朗普身边的其他人对总统不承担任何个人责任、否认惨重的共和党失利实际上是对他第二任期的公投，感到震惊但不意外。
Still, other people in Trump’s orbit have been horrified but unsurprised that the president took no personal responsibility and denied that the devastating GOP losses were effectively a referendum on his second term.
许多关键参议院竞选的候选人都是特朗普挑选并背书的人，包括深陷丑闻的得克萨斯州共和党州检察长肯·帕克斯顿，以及缺乏经验的达琳·格雷厄姆——已故参议员林赛·格雷厄姆的妹妹——在南卡罗来纳州参选。
Many of the candidates in key Senate races were people that Trump had chosen and endorsed, including the scandal-plagued Republican state attorney general Ken Paxton in Texas and the inexperienced Darline Graham, sister of the late senator Lindsey Graham, in South Carolina.
而在北卡罗来纳州，前共和党全国委员会主席迈克尔·沃特利被民主党人罗伊·库珀大败——但这仅发生在特朗普今年早些时候在初选中挑战受欢迎的现任议员汤姆·蒂利斯之后。
And in North Carolina, the former RNC chair Michael Whatley was defeated resoundingly by the Democratic Roy Cooper—but only after Trump primaried the popular incumbent Thom Tillis earlier this year.
至于特朗普声称自己不在选票上，这一说法被总统本人在全国各地的集会上明确告诉选民要假装他在选票上、以此推高投票率的做法所削弱。而且在这些集会上，一些顾问指出，特朗普反复谈论石油公司的创纪录利润以及他的虚荣建设项目，反而掩盖了他自己的竞选信息。显然，选民不买账。这是雨果·洛厄尔的《内部圈子》通讯的一个版本。
As for Trump’s claim that he wasn’t on the ballot, that was undercut by the president explicitly telling voters at rallies across the country to pretend that he was, in order to drive turnout. And at those same rallies, some advisers noted, Trump overshadowed his own message by repeatedly talking about record profits of oil companies and his vanity construction projects. Voters, it’s clear, didn’t like that message. This is an edition of Hugo Lowell’s Inner Loop newsletter.