比尔·巴罗 亚特兰大 —— 就总统回忆录而言，乔·拜登的这本相对简短，共480页。但这本定于周二发行的著作，依然服务于该体裁的一贯目的：为他在白宫的时光提供一份不加掩饰的辩护。
BILL BARROW ATLANTA — As presidential memoirs go, Joe Biden’s is a relatively brief 480 pages. But Biden’s effort, set for a Tuesday release, serves the genre’s usual purpose of providing an unapologetic defense of his time in the White House.
拜登对唐纳德·特朗普毫不留情，猛烈抨击他否认选举结果、在1月6日国会山骚乱中扮演的角色，以及对参与者实施全面赦免。
Biden pulls no punches on Donald Trump, blasting him for his election denialism, his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and blanket pardons of the participants.
他还吹嘘自己漫长的立法记录，并驳斥了其政策加剧通胀、使国家从新冠疫情中复苏变得更加复杂的批评。
He also boasts about his lengthy legislative record and rejects criticisms that his policies intensified inflation and complicated the nation’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
他坚持支持那次致命的阿富汗撤军行动，并将美国国际联盟在特朗普执政期间关系紧张后得到修复的功劳归于自己。
He stands by the deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and credits himself with rehabilitating U.S. international alliances that grew strained under Trump.
拜登还为2024年竞选连任进行辩护，尽管当时外界对他的年龄存有担忧，即使这一决定预示了特朗普的第二个总统任期。
Biden also defends running for a second term in 2024 despite concerns about his age, even if that decision presaged Trump’s second presidency.
以下是拜登在《答应我，美国》一书中描绘其白宫岁月的一些亮点，包括这位前总统未曾提及的内容。
Here are some highlights of how Biden depicts his White House years in “Promise Me, America,” including what the former president doesn’t say.
拜登为寻求连任不做任何道歉，并抱怨“新闻界和评论员不断谈论我有多么软弱”，尽管从未出现挑战者。
Biden makes no apologies for seeking a second term, and he complains that “the press and pundits kept talking about how weak I was” despite no challenger emerging.
他写道：“初选并未发出我陷入麻烦的任何警示信号。但这无法阻止围绕我候选人资格形成的叙事。说我年纪太大。说我精神衰退。”接着就是在亚特兰大辩论舞台上那场灾难性的夜晚。拜登写道，他曾质疑团队关于有必要与特朗普辩论的决定。
“The primaries sent no warning signs that I was in trouble,” he writes. “But that couldn’t derail the narrative setting in on my candidacy. That I was too old. That I was declining mentally.”And then came one disastrous night on the debate stage in Atlanta. Biden writes that he’d questioned his team about the need to debate Trump at all.
“并非我担心自己辩论唐纳德·特朗普的能力，”他说，“而是他极其倾向于肆无忌惮地撒谎、欺凌主持人、违反规则、对哪怕一点点事实核查都发牢骚，以至于我不知道让我公开为这种行为提供平台是否会有任何价值。”但拜登确实详细遗憾地提到了“让我最低谷的时刻之一”，当时他在讨论赤字问题时给出了一个不知所云的回答。
“It’s not that I was concerned about my ability to debate Donald Trump,” he says. “It was that he was so prone to lying with abandon, bullying the moderators, violating the rules, whining about even a hint of fact checking, that I didn’t know whether there would be any value in my giving a public platform to this behavior.”But Biden does lament in detail “one of the lowest moments for me” when he gave a nonsensical answer when discussing the deficit.
“我思路中断了，看到计时器上我的时间快用完了，便匆忙脱口说出：‘我们终于战胜了联邦医疗保险（Medicare）’，”他回忆道。“我原本想说的是，‘我们终于战胜了大型制药商’。”这指的是一项为联邦医疗保险受益人谈判药价的协议，“一项历史性成就，”拜登写道。
“I lost my train of thought, saw that my time was running out on the clock, and rushed the final part of my answer by blurting out: ‘We finally beat Medicare,’” he recalls. “What I meant to say was, ‘We finally beat Big Pharma.’”That’s a reference to a deal negotiating drug prices for Medicare recipients, “a historic achievement,” Biden writes.
“具有讽刺意味的是，这项历史性成就非但没有提振我的竞选，反而帮助葬送了它，”他写道。“本应成为辩论亮点的时刻，成了证明我年纪太大、无法胜任这份工作的铁证。”拜登坚持认为，即使在辩论之后，这场竞选依然有赢的可能。
“Ironically, this historic achievement wouldn’t lift my candidacy. It would help to sink it,” he writes. “What should have been a highlight of the debate became Exhibit A that I was too old to do the job.”Biden insists the race was still winnable even after the debate.
“我老吗？是的。我能胜任这份工作吗？是的。选民对通胀愤怒吗？是的。他们对移民问题愤怒吗？是的。这些都是棘手的问题。但并非不可克服的问题，”他写道，并补充说，“许多老朋友倒戈相向，我个人很难接受。”
“Was I old? Yes. Was I able to do the job? Yes. Were voters angry about inflation? Yes. Were they angry about immigration? Yes. All tough problems. But not insurmountable ones,” he wrote, adding that it was “personally hard to take so many old friends turning on me.”
然而，拜登回忆，参院民主党领袖查克·舒默告诉他，“我可能仍有五位民主党参议员仍然支持我。”
However, Biden recalls Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer telling him “I might still have five Democratic senators still supporting me.”
他对舒默说，“你有胆量（我当时的措辞可能不同），上门到我家里告诉我退出竞选。”他在7月20日晚入睡时，已起草好宣布退选决定的声明。
He told Schumer “he had a lot of gumption (I may have said it differently at the time), coming to my home and telling me to get out of the race.”He went to sleep on the night of July 20 having worked on a draft statement announcing his decision to drop out.
“信不信由你，”他写道，“那天晚上我睡得很好。” 拜登的当选以及他作为一任总统的命运，与卡玛拉·哈里斯紧密相连。尽管她曾是2020年民主党初选中“向我开炮”的民主党人之一，但拜登回忆说，他当时对她印象深刻。
“Believe it or not,” he writes, “I slept well that night.”Biden’s election and his fate as a one-term president is tied inextricably to Kamala Harris. Although she was among the Democrats who “took their shots at me” during the 2020 primary, Biden recalls being impressed by her.
拜登经常提到哈里斯是那小群在关键时刻和决策现场的顾问之一，并形容他们之间的关系很融洽。他在她接替他出现在2024年选票上后，称赞了她的表现。
Biden often mentions Harris among the small group of advisers in the room for seminal moments and decisions, and he describes their relationship as warm. He praised her performance after she replaced him on the 2024 ballot.
“她是一流的候选人，”拜登在书中写道，指的是她为期107天的竞选活动。“她在与特朗普总统的辩论中表现极为出色。她在巡回演讲中表现优异。她是筹款机器。我为她和她进行的竞选感到自豪。” 拜登表示，他对中东实现永久和平的希望，随着哈马斯2023年10月7日对以色列的袭击而“破灭”。
Harris “was a first-rate candidate,” Biden writes of her 107-day campaign. “She performed masterfully in her debate with President Trump. She was great on the stump. She was a fundraising machine. I was proud of her and the campaign she ran.”Biden said his hopes for permanent peace in the Middle East were “shattered” with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
战争爆发时，拜登写道，他当天多次致电以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡。“我想让他知道，我决心确保这样的日子不再发生，”拜登写道，同时表示他的做法受到了内塔尼亚胡国内政治和日益右倾姿态的影响。“我们彼此可以直截了当地交谈，但互信并不深，”拜登写道。
When the war began, Biden writes, he called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu several times that day. “I wanted him to know my determination to ensure that a day like this would never happen again,” Biden writes, while saying his approach was influenced by Netanyahu’s domestic politics and increasing right-wing posture. “He and I could be direct with each other, but there wasn’t a ton of trust,” Biden writes.
尽管对以色列提供援助在民主党内部引发深刻争议，他仍为这一做法辩护。拜登解释说，他认为作为总统必须“支持美国的利益和美国的盟友”，但他表示，“自内塔尼亚胡2022年底重新掌权以来，我觉得保护以色列的工作，意味着既要保护它免受敌人侵害，也要保护它免受其自身侵害。” 拜登用整整一章篇幅论述阿富汗问题，将自己定位为这场战争的长期怀疑论者，包括在担任贝拉克·奥巴马副总统期间。
He also defends providing assistance to Israel even though it became deeply controversial among Democrats. Biden explains that he believed he had to “support America’s interests and America’s allies” as president but says, “since Netanyahu’s return to power at the end of 2022, I felt that the work of protecting Israel meant protecting it both from its enemies and itself.”Biden devotes an entire chapter to Afghanistan, framing himself as a longtime skeptic of the war, including as Barack Obama’s vice president.
特朗普此前曾承诺撤出美军，拜登称这是一个“奇怪的困境” —— 即达成一项协议，塔利班同意在美军按期限撤出期间不袭击美军。拜登将其形容为一个“定时炸弹”。
Trump had previously committed to withdrawing American forces, and Biden says it was an “odd predicament” — an agreement for the Taliban not to strike U.S. forces as they pulled out by a deadline. Biden described it as a “ticking time bomb.”
细节并非“我会谈判的结果”，但拜登同意“是时候结束这场永无止境的战争了”。因此，他设定了9月11日的最后期限，并写道，他努力加强阿什拉夫·加尼总统的部队，使其能够自卫抵御塔利班。然而，在2021年8月，“阿富汗军队直接瓦解了”。在撤军期间，一名自杀式炸弹袭击者袭击了喀布尔机场的阿比盖特。数十名阿富汗平民丧生，13名美军士兵也遇难。
The details were not what “I would have negotiated” but Biden agreed “it was time to end the forever war.”So, he set a Sept. 11 deadline and, he writes, worked to shore up President Ashraf Ghani’s forces to defend themselves against the Taliban. Yet over the course of August 2021 “the Afghan army simply melted away.”During the withdrawal, a suicide bomber struck at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate. Scores of Afghan civilians died, as well as 13 U.S. service members.
“这令人心碎，”拜登写道。“我每天都在想念他们，想念他们的英勇和他们的家人。”拜登表示，他雄心勃勃的“美国救援计划”，一项总额1.9万亿美元的疫情应对方案，对于刺激经济是必要的。
“It was devastating,” Biden writes. “I think about them, and their heroism and their families, every day.”Biden says his ambitious “American Rescue Plan,” a $1.9 trillion response to the pandemic, was necessary to jolt the economy.
但他不得不应对来自西弗吉尼亚州的民主党参议员乔·曼钦，后者在参议院两党势均力敌的情况下成为关键摇摆票。拜登描述了自己将曼钦叫到椭圆形办公室，当时这位参议员在法案问题上态度强硬。
But he had to navigate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who’d become a key swing vote in an evenly split Senate. Biden described calling Manchin to the Oval Office as the senator held out on the bill.
“我们都是老派的天主教政治家。自尊心强。固执，”拜登写道。“我从未认为自己是那种林登·约翰逊式的总统，通过劝说、威胁甚至肢体施压来迫使立法者就范，但我当时正在失去耐心。我告诉乔，我需要他支持这项法案，如果他坏了我的事，我会跑遍西弗吉尼亚州的每一个县，告诉他们是乔·曼钦导致他们得不到任何援助。乔立刻反唇相讥，提醒我自己在西弗吉尼亚州并不受欢迎。”曼钦投了赞成票，法案得以通过。巴罗是一名全国政治记者，曾报道拜登2020年总统竞选活动。
“We were both Catholic politicians from the old school. Proud. Stubborn,” Biden writes of Manchin. “I never considered myself a Lyndon Johnson–type president, who cajoled and threatened and even physically cowed legislators, but I was losing my temper. I told Joe that I needed him on this, and if he screwed me, I’d go to every county in West Virginia and tell them that Joe Manchin was why they weren’t getting any help. Joe came right back at me, reminding me that I wasn’t so popular in West Virginia.”Manchin voted yes and the measure passed. Barrow is a national politics reporter who covered Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.