10月16日星期五，一名记者问唐纳德·特朗普是否考虑更换白宫幕僚长苏西·怀尔斯。“零可能性，”总统回答。“零。”他似乎对这个问题感到恼怒，补充道，“她很出色。……苏西在这里，而且她还会待很长时间。”11月6日星期五，特朗普用斯蒂芬·米勒取代了怀尔斯，并很快明确表示，怀尔斯的下台并非出于自愿。
On Friday, Oct. 16, a reporter asked Donald Trump if he was considering replacing Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff. “Zero chance,” the president replied. “Zero.”Seemingly annoyed by the question, he added, “She’s phenomenal. … Susie is here and she’s going to be here for a long time.”On Friday, Nov. 6, Trump replaced Wiles with Stephen Miller, and soon after, he made it clear that Wiles’ ouster had not been voluntary.
“我想做出改变，”这位共和党人周五下午对记者说，并补充道，“我们必须采取行动。有时候在生活中，你必须采取行动。”三周前，特朗普做出了另一项人事变动，结束了凯蒂·扎卡里亚担任白宫新闻秘书的短暂而灾难性的任期，她只干了五天，这紧随总统罢免美国驻希腊大使金伯利·吉尔福伊尔之后。
“I wanted to make a change,” the Republican told reporters on Friday afternoon, adding, “We’ve got to make moves. Sometimes in life, you have to make moves.”Three weeks earlier, Trump had made another move, ending Katie Zacharia’s brief, disastrous tenure as White House press secretary after just five days, which came immediately on the heels of the president ousting U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle.
她们远非唯一因让政府感到不便而失去职务的高级官员。相反，她们加入了一个名单，其中包括前司法部长帕姆·邦迪、前国土安全部部长克里斯蒂·诺姆、前劳工部长洛丽·查韦斯-德雷默以及前国家情报总监图尔西·加巴德。
They were hardly the only prominent officials to find themselves unemployed after proving inconvenient to the administration. On the contrary, they joined a list that includes former Attorney General Pam Bondi, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
这一模式及时提醒人们：特朗普政府愿意与卷入丑闻阴云的官员分道扬镳，但男性往往比女性表现得好得多。（在几乎所有这些案例中，被解雇的女性都由男性接替。例外是扎卡里亚，她至今尚未被任何人接替。）重点并非怀尔斯、扎卡里亚、吉尔福伊尔、邦迪、诺姆、查韦斯-德雷默或加巴德在某种程度上受到了不公正待遇。相反，很容易论证她们都应该被免职。
The pattern offers a timely reminder: The Trump administration is willing to part with officials who find themselves under a cloud of scandal, but men tend to fare far better than women. (In nearly all of these instances, the women who have been fired were replaced by men. The exception is Zacharia, who has not yet been replaced by anyone.) The point is not that Wiles, Zacharia, Guilfoyle, Bondi, Noem, Chavez-DeRemer or Gabbard were somehow treated unfairly. On the contrary, it’s easy to make the case that they all deserved to be removed from office.
但当时的白宫国家安全顾问迈克·沃尔茨陷入麻烦时，他获得了一份“金色降落伞”，出任美国常驻联合国大使。当政府对时任国税局局长比利·朗产生戒心时，却用一个大使职位奖励了他。（是的，克里斯蒂·诺姆从技术上被任命为“美洲盾牌特使”，但该实体似乎几乎没有任何实质性存在，后来她甚至被撤销了那个职位。）
But when then-White House national security adviser Mike Waltz ran into trouble, he received a golden parachute and became the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. When the administration grew wary of then-IRS chief Billy Long, it rewarded him with an ambassadorship. (Yes, Noem was technically named a “special envoy” to the Shield of the Americas, but the entity barely seems to exist in any meaningful sense, and she was later removed from even that position.)
与此同时，国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯、卫生与公共服务部长小罗伯特·肯尼迪、联邦调查局局长卡什·帕特尔和商务部长霍华德·卢特尼克等其他知名人物，从一个残酷的新闻头条冲向下一个——而与此同时，他们从总统那里得到的不过是拍拍肩膀。
In the meantime, other prominent figures such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., FBI Director Kash Patel and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick careen from one brutal headline to the next — all while receiving little more than a pat on the back from the president.
就记录而言，白宫内阁中仍有部分女性继续任职，例如农业部长布鲁克·罗林斯、教育部长琳达·麦克马洪和小企业管理局局长凯莉·勒夫勒。即便如此，总统在最近接受CBS《60分钟》节目采访时表示，他正考虑对内阁进行“几处变动”，因此她们的职位是否安全尚不清楚。拭目以待。
For the record, some women still continue to serve in the White House Cabinet (Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler, for example). Even so, the president said during his latest interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” that he’s eyeing “a few changes” to his Cabinet, so the degree to which their jobs are safe is unclear. Watch this space.