特朗普當選曾令奧巴馬自我懷疑

WASHINGTON — Riding in a motorcade in Lima, Peru, shortly after the 2016 election, President Barack Obama was struggling to understand Donald J. Trump’s victory.

華盛頓——2016年大選結束後不久，在行進於祕魯利馬街頭的車隊裏，貝拉克·奧巴馬(Barack Obama)總統正在費力地思考爲什麼唐納德·J·特朗普會獲勝。

“What if we were wrong?” he asked aides riding with him in the armored presidential limousine.

“如果是我們錯了怎麼辦？”他問和他一起坐在那輛防彈總統專車裏的助手。

He had read a column asserting that liberals had forgotten how important identity was to people and had promoted an empty cosmopolitan globalism that made many feel left behind. “Maybe we pushed too far,” Mr. Obama said. “Maybe people just want to fall back into their tribe.”

他看過的一篇專欄文章聲稱，自由派忘記了身份對人們的重要性，他們宣揚的那種空洞的國際化全球主義，讓很多人覺得自己被拋棄了。“也許我們用力過猛了，”奧巴馬說。“也許人們只是想回歸自己的羣體。”

His aides reassured him that he still would have won had he been able to run for another term and that the next generation had more in common with him than with Mr. Trump. Mr. Obama, the first black man elected president, did not seem convinced. “Sometimes I wonder whether I was 10 or 20 years too early,” he said.

助手向他保證，如果能謀求連任他還是會贏，比起特朗普，下一代和他有更多共同語言。作爲首位黑人總統，奧巴馬似乎沒有被說服。“有時我在想自己是不是早了10年或20年，”他說。

In the weeks after Mr. Trump’s election, Mr. Obama went through multiple emotional stages, according to a new book by his longtime adviser Benjamin J. Rhodes. At times, the departing president took the long view, at other points, he flashed anger. He called Mr. Trump a “cartoon” figure who cared more about his crowd sizes than any particular policy. And he expressed rare self-doubt, wondering whether he had misjudged his own influence on American history.

據長期擔任其顧問的本傑明·J·羅茲(Benjamin J. Rhodes)的新書透露，在特朗普當選後的幾周裏，奧巴馬的情緒經歷了好幾個階段。有時候，這位即將離任的總統會着眼於長遠。但有時候他也會表現出憤怒。他稱特朗普是一個“卡通”人物，更關心自己的粉絲規模，而不是任何具體政策。他還表現出了少有的自我懷疑，想知道他是不是誤判了自己對美國曆史的影響。

Set to be published next week by Random House, Mr. Rhodes’s memoir, “The World as It Is,” offers a peek into Mr. Obama’s tightly sealed inner sanctum from the perspective of one of the few people who saw him up close through all eight years of his presidency. Few moments shook Mr. Obama more than the decision by voters to replace him with a candidate who had questioned his very birth.

羅茲這本回憶錄叫《真實的世界》(The World as It Is)，定於下週由蘭登書屋(Random House)出版。在奧巴馬擔任總統的八年裏，羅茲是少數幾個一直能夠近距離接觸到他的人之一。他從自己的視角介紹了奧巴馬緊密戒備的內心世界。選民決定讓一個質疑他的出生的候選人接替他，沒有什麼比這更讓奧巴馬震驚的了。

Mr. Rhodes served as Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser through some of the most consequential points of his presidency, including decisions to authorize the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, send more troops to Afghanistan, pull most troops out of Iraq, restore diplomatic relations with Cuba, seal a nuclear agreement with Iran, intervene militarily in Libya and refuse to intervene militarily in Syria.

羅茲以奧巴馬的副國家安全顧問的身份，經歷了他總統任期內的一些最重要的時刻，包括決定批准殺死奧薩馬·本·拉登(Osama bin Laden)的突擊行動，向阿富汗增兵，把主力部隊撤出伊拉克，與古巴恢復外交關係，同伊朗達成核協議，軍事幹預利比亞和拒絕軍事幹預敘利亞。

But his book offers a new window, if only slightly cracked open, into the 44th president’s handling of Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election to help Mr. Trump get elected and the aftermath.

至於美國第44任總統如何處理俄羅斯爲幫助特朗普當選而干預2016大選，並應對此事的後果，這本書也開啓了一個新窗口，儘管只是一個略微打開的窗口。

In handing over power to someone determined to tear down all he had accomplished, Mr. Obama alluded to “The Godfather” mafia movie: “I feel like Michael Corleone. I almost got out.”

在把權力移交給一個決心廢除他的所有成果的人時，奧巴馬含蓄地提到了黑幫電影《教父》(The Godfather)：“我覺得自己像邁克爾·柯里昂(Michael Corleone)一樣。我差一點就逃脫了。”

Mr. Rhodes describes the reaction of foreign leaders. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan apologized for breaching protocol by meeting with Mr. Trump at Trump Tower in Manhattan after the election. Mr. Obama urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada to take on a more vocal role defending the values they shared.

羅茲描述了外國領導人的反應。日本首相安倍晉三(Shinzo Abe)爲在大選結束後違反外交禮節，與特朗普在曼哈頓的特朗普大廈(Trump Tower)會面而道歉。奧巴馬敦促加拿大總理賈斯汀·特魯多(Justin Trudeau)在捍衛他們共同的價值觀上發揮更大的作用。

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told Mr. Obama that she felt more obliged to run for another term because of Mr. Trump’s election to defend the liberal international order. When they parted for the final time, Ms. Merkel had a single tear in her eye. “She’s all alone,” Mr. Obama noted.

德國總理安格拉·默克爾(Angela Merkel)告訴奧巴馬，由於特朗普的當選，她覺得更有義務謀求連任，以捍衛自由主義國際秩序。最後一次道別時，默克爾眼裏含着淚水。“就剩她一個人了，”奧巴馬說。

And yet despite criticism even from former advisers to Mr. Obama, Mr. Rhodes offers little sense that the former president thought he could have done more to counter Russian involvement in the election. Mr. Obama had authorized a statement to be issued by intelligence agency leaders a month before the election warning of Russian interference, but was thwarted from doing more because Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, refused to go along with a bipartisan statement.

然而，儘管遭到了甚至是奧巴馬多位前顧問的指責，從羅茲的陳述來看，前總統不覺得在對抗俄羅斯介入一事上自己還能做些什麼。奧巴馬曾在大選的一個月前授權情報機構負責人發表一份聲明，提醒選民注意俄羅斯的干預，但由於共和黨領袖、肯塔基州參議員米奇·麥康奈爾(Mitch McConnell)拒絕發表兩黨聯合聲明，奧巴馬未能採取更多行動。

Mr. Rhodes called Mr. McConnell’s refusal “staggeringly partisan and unpatriotic.” But Mr. Obama, whose Supreme Court nomination had been blocked by Mr. McConnell for months, seemed less surprised.

羅茲稱麥康奈爾的拒絕“帶着驚人的黨派性，非常不愛國”。但奧巴馬似乎沒那麼驚訝。在那之前，奧巴馬的最高法院提名被麥康奈爾攔阻了幾個月。

“What else did you expect from McConnell?” he asked. “He won’t even give us a hearing on Merrick Garland.”

“還能對麥康奈爾有什麼指望?”他問道。“在梅里克·加蘭德(Merrick Garland)的事情上他連聽證會的機會都不給我們。”

Still, in preparatory sessions before meetings with the news media before the election, aides pressed Mr. Obama to respond to criticism that he should speak out more about Russian meddling. “I talk about it every time I’m asked,” he responded. “What else are we going to do? We’ve warned folks.”

但大選前，在會見新聞媒體前的籌備環節，助手催促奧巴馬迴應外界對他應多談談俄羅斯干預大選一事的指責。“每次被問到都談，”他回答說。“我們還能做什麼？我們已經警告過大家了。”

He noted that Mr. Trump was already claiming that the election would be manipulated if Hillary Clinton won. “If I speak out more, he’ll just say it’s rigged,” Mr. Obama said.

他指出，特朗普已經聲稱如果希拉里·克林頓(Hillary Clinton)獲勝，選舉就是被操縱了。“如果我再說，他只會說選舉被操縱了，”奧巴馬說。

Mr. Rhodes writes that neither he nor Mr. Obama knew at that time that there was an F.B.I. investigation into contacts between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia, despite Mr. Trump’s recent unsubstantiated claims that the departing president placed a “spy” or multiple spies in his campaign.

羅茲寫道，他和奧巴馬當時都不知道聯邦調查局(FBI)在調查特朗普的競選團隊與俄羅斯之間的接觸。但特朗普最近聲稱，即將離任的奧巴馬在他的競選團隊裏安插了一個或多個“間諜”。特朗普的說法未得到證實。

Mr. Rhodes writes he did not learn about the F.B.I. investigation until after leaving office, and then from the news media. Mr. Obama did not impose sanctions on Russia in retaliation for the meddling before the election because he believed it might prompt Moscow into hacking into Election Day vote tabulations. Mr. Obama did impose sanctions after the election but Mr. Rhodes’s suggestion that the targets include President Vladimir V. Putin was rebuffed on the theory that such a move would go too far.

羅茲寫道，他直到離任後才得知聯邦調查局的調查一事，之後就是通過新聞媒體解情況。奧巴馬沒有在大選前通過制裁報復俄羅斯干預選舉，因爲他認爲這麼做可能會促使莫斯科入侵選舉日的計票系統。選舉結束後，奧巴馬的確對俄羅斯實行了制裁，但羅茲的建議——將俄羅斯總統弗拉基米爾·V·普京(Vladimir V. Putin)列爲制裁對象——被以太過分爲由拒絕。

Mr. Obama and his team were confident that Mrs. Clinton would win and, like much of the country, were shocked when she did not. “I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should have seen it coming,” Mr. Rhodes writes. “Because when you distilled it, stripped out the racism and misogyny, we’d run against Hillary eight years ago with the same message Trump had used: She’s part of a corrupt establishment that can’t be trusted to bring change.”

奧巴馬和他的團隊確信希拉里·克林頓會獲得勝利，而當她沒有當選時，他們也和這個國家的大多數人一樣感到震驚。“我腦子裏總在想，我應該早就預料到會這樣的，”羅茲寫道。“因爲如果你提煉一下，不考慮那些種族和女性歧視，我們在八年前跟希拉里競選對抗的時候，用的是和特朗普一樣的說辭：她屬於一個腐敗的統治集團，無法信任她會帶來改變。”

On election night, Mr. Obama spoke by telephone with Cody Keenan, his chief speechwriter, and Mr. Rhodes to figure out what he should say. Mr. Rhodes asked if he should offer reassurance to allies. “No, I don’t think that I’m the one to tell them that,” the president said.

競選當晚，奧巴馬與他的首席演講撰稿人科迪·基南(Cody Keenan)和羅茲通話討論他該說些什麼。羅茲提出他是否該向盟友提供保證。“不，我不認爲應該由我來告訴他們這個，”總統說道。

The next day, Mr. Obama focused on cheering up his despondent staff. At one point, he sent a message to Mr. Rhodes saying, “There are more stars in the sky than grains of sand on the earth.”

第二天，奧巴馬最關心的是讓沮喪的幕僚們打起精神來。他一度還給羅茲發了條消息說：“天上的星星，比地上的沙子多。”

But days later, Mr. Obama seemed less sanguine. “I don’t know,” he told aides. “Maybe this is what people want. I’ve got the economy set up well for him. No facts. No consequences. They can just have a cartoon.”

但幾天後，奧巴馬看起來就不那麼樂觀了。“我不知道，”他告訴助手。“可能這就是人們想要的。我已經幫他把經濟準備好了。沒有事實。沒有後果。他們有個卡通就夠了。”

He added that “we’re about to find out just how resilient our institutions are, at home and around the world.”

他還說“我們很快就能知道，我們的制度——無論在國內還是世界上——有多強的抗衝擊能力了。”

The day Mr. Obama hosted Mr. Trump at the White House after the election seemed surreal. Mr. Trump kept steering the conversation back to the size of his rallies, noting that he and Mr. Obama could draw big crowds, but Mrs. Clinton could not, Mr. Rhodes writes.

大選後奧巴馬在白宮接待特朗普的那天看起來有些超現實。羅茲寫道，特朗普不斷地把談話轉向他的集會規模，指出他和奧巴馬都能吸引大批人羣，而希拉里·克林頓不行。

Afterward, Mr. Obama called a few aides to the Oval Office to ruminate on the encounter. “I’m trying to place him in American history,” he said.

之後，奧巴馬把幾名助手叫到了橢圓形辦公室，認真思考這次會面。“我在試着把他擺在美國曆史裏，”他說。

“He peddles” bull, Mr. Rhodes answered. “That character has always been part of the American story. You can see it right back to some of the characters in Huckleberry Finn.”

羅茲說，“他滿口”胡話。“美國曆史上向來都有這個角色。在《哈克貝利·費恩歷險記》的一些人物身上你就可以看到。”

“Maybe,” Mr. Obama answered, “that’s the best we can hope for.”

“或許，”奧巴馬回答說，“那就是我們能指望的最好情況了。”