美媒：川普终于有了他想要的团队，但却是个“二把刀”

白宫内工作人员的真实水平 ～ 

 

http://dailynews.sina.com   2020年10月13日 18:03   参考消息

 

 

　　原标题：美媒：川普终于有了他想要的团队，但却是个“二把刀”

　　美国《政治报》网站10月11日发表题为《川普治下白宫的外行时刻》一文称，唐纳德·川普确诊新冠肺炎后最近几天发生的事情表明，他身边让人感到熟悉的信口开河现象进入了一个全新阶段。全文摘编如下：

　　自相矛盾

　　这在一定程度上是因为，在第一个任期接近尾声之际，川普身边的专业人士并不那么专业。如今，就关键性工作人员和内阁职位而言，经验能媲美前几届政府中同样职务者的人凤毛麟角。

　　这个重大缺陷在种种不起眼的错误中暴露无遗。如正式的白宫声明屡屡出现明显的拼写错误，川普在一段视频讲话中念错一位著名共和党参议员的名字等。战略沟通部主任阿莉萨·法拉在接受电视采访时干了差不多同样的事情，她多次说错川普医生的名字。

　　周三，关于正在康复过程中但可能仍有传染性的川普前一天有没有去过椭圆形办公室，白宫办公厅主任马克·梅多斯和国家经济委员会主任拉里·库德洛在公开场合的说法相互矛盾。

　　新闻秘书凯莉·麦克纳尼的新闻发布会基本被记者们斥为娱乐而已，根本不是可靠信息的来源，很多时候压根没有任何信息。本月早些时候，她在新闻发布会上居然不知道自己接触过的总统顾问霍普·希克斯新冠病毒检测结果呈阳性。法拉公开承诺公布感染新冠病毒的白宫助手人数后，过了几小时，麦克纳尼称，出于“隐私”原因，他们不会提供这方面的数字。

▲资料图片：白宫新闻秘书凯莉·麦克纳尼（新华社/欧新）

　　这些失误很容易让人觉得不过是小小的沟通错误，但与公众沟通是白宫的最重要工作之一。而且，川普治下白宫把事情搞得一团糟，令原本就焦头烂额的政府雪上加霜。

　　这种现象不仅涉及与川普个人健康和政见有关的事务，还涉及外交政策事务。在外交政策问题上，以往政府的立场是：世人都在看着呢，说话一定要准确、明白。

　　川普的国家安全事务助理罗伯特·奥布莱恩周三在某大学发表演讲时说，美国到“明年初”将把驻阿富汗部队人数减少到2500人；短短几个小时后，川普在推特上发文称，美国将在圣诞节前撤出全部驻阿部队。

　　盲目忠诚

　　最近几天发生的事情并不反常，但确实表明了近四年来日渐形成的一种趋势达到新的顶峰。自上任第一天起，川普就一直在挑起政府内部争斗，靶子往往是有独立见解或者在加入政府之前成绩斐然的人。

　　除了少数例外，川普总是在争斗中获胜，如今拥有了他想要的团队。但这是代价高昂的胜利：他发现自己身边人的履历在通常情况下是不宜担任白宫或内阁高层职务的。一流团队就别指望了。眼下，能有二流团队就是万幸了。

　　卡洛斯·古铁雷斯曾在小布什政府担任商务部长，走上仕途之前是凯洛格公司的董事长兼首席执行官。他说，在川普政府任职的人必须“表现出绝对的忠诚”，而这种效忠意味着其他方面的从政素质不保。“政策经验、知识水平和办事能力并不是最重要的。最重要的是：谁能效忠于总统且（表现出）盲目的忠诚。”

　　一般来说，政府高官职位具有足够的吸引力，任何一位总统都会有众多政策经验丰富或者在其他领域表现出色的人可供挑选。

　　川普治下的白宫在一开始也是这样，川普多年前曾承诺“只任用最优秀、最靠谱的人”。不管人们如何看待白宫前办公厅主任约翰·凯利和前国防部长詹姆斯·马蒂斯，这两个人好歹都是退役四星将军。

　　外行上任

　　现任白宫办公厅主任马克·梅多斯沿袭了担任该职务的人均来自国会山的传统。但2012年以“茶党”共和党人身份当选国会议员的梅多斯，既未担任过参议院多数党领袖，也没有为赢得多数党地位而开展卓有成效的竞选活动。他的发达之道是领导以破坏不合心意的议案为特点的众议院自由党团会，不是带头推动重大计划。

　　同样的例子在内阁和总统非正式顾问团中比比皆是。财政部长史蒂文·姆努钦以前没有担任过政府职务，但确实曾在华尔街叱咤风云，类似于之前担任这一职务的几个人。但在五角大楼，川普把国家安全界德高望重的人物之一马蒂斯换成了西点军校毕业的马克·埃斯珀，后者从陆军退役、进入川普政府之前是智库资深人士和说客，虽有所作为但不及大多数国防部长的丰富从政经验。在卫生与公众服务部，部长亚历克斯·阿扎确曾在该部门担任高级别职务，但无论是在疫情之前还是疫情期间都始终难以与川普和他的白宫西翼建立有效的工作关系。

▲资料图片：3月13日，美国总统川普（前）在华盛顿白宫的记者会上讲话，正式宣布“国家紧急状态”。（新华社）

　　许多现任白宫助手面临的另一个问题是不懂内部程序，而这些程序的存在自有其道理：确保取得好的结果，避免让大家出丑难堪。一位前政府官员说：“他们未充分了解白宫是如何运作的，未充分了解白宫和新闻界在诸如此类的危机时刻如何精诚合作。

(https://dailynews.sina.com/gb/international/cankaoxiaoxi/2020-10-13/doc-ihaauwts5974313.shtml)

 

Amateur hour at the Trump White House
The coronavirus outbreak at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is just one facet of a much deeper presidential malaise.

President Donald Trump speaks at a Latinos for Trump Coalition roundtable campaign event at Arizona Grand Resort & Spa, in Phoenix. | Andrew Harnik, File/ AP Photo

By JOHN F. HARRIS and DANIEL LIPPMAN

10/11/2020 07:01 AM EDT

Updated: 10/11/2020 11:24 AM EDT

Nearly everyone remembers the old cliché: If you can’t trust someone to get the little things right, how can you ever count on them to do the big things?

President Donald Trump had better hope that bromide, invoked everywhere from youth sports teams to sales training sessions, doesn’t apply to him.

As his presidency lurches toward a climactic judgment on Nov. 3, the little things lately have rarely gone more pervasively or embarrassingly wrong — at a time when public confidence in Trump’s handling of the big things is hardly robust.

The initial reaction might be, So what’s new here? But recent days, in the wake of Trump being stricken with coronavirus, have highlighted just how the lurching improvisation that is a familiar phenomenon around Trump has entered a different phase. The professionals around the president aren’t merely laboring to contain and channel the disruptive politician they work for. Very often they are amplifying the chaos.

That’s in part because, as his first term comes to a close, the professionals around Trump are not all that professional. It is now the exception in key staff and Cabinet posts to have people whose experience would be commensurate with that of people who have typically held those jobs in previous administrations of both parties. This major weakness has been revealing itself in a barrage of minor errors that summon Casey Stengel’s incredulous question about the 1962 New York Mets: Can’t anybody here play this game?

There have been prominent misspellings in official White House statements (the pharmaceutical company whose treatment Trump took is Regeneron, not Regeron). Trump bungled the name of a well-known Republican senator (that’s James Inhofe, not Imhofe) in a video message. Communications Director Alyssa Farah did much the same in a television interview, repeatedly mispronouncing the name of Trump’s physician (it’s Dr. Sean Conley, with two syllables, not Connelly with three).

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow on Wednesday contradicted each other in public remarks on whether a recuperating, but still possibly infectious, Trump had been in the Oval Office the day before. (Kudlow thought he had, Meadows was apparently right that on that day Trump hadn’t.)

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany calls on a reporter during a press briefing in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2020. | Andrew Harnik/ AP Photo

Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s briefings are largely dismissed as mere entertainment by reporters, not a source of reliable information or, on frequent occasions, any information at all. Earlier this month, she didn’t know at her own briefing that presidential counselor Hope Hicks, to whom she had been exposed, had tested positive for the virus. After Farah publicly promised to release the numbers of White House aides infected with coronavirus, a few hours later McEnany said they wouldn’t provide those numbers for “privacy” reasons.

It’s easy to dismiss these flubs as minor communications errors, but communicating with the public is one of the most important things White Houses do. And this one has made such a hash of things that it has compounded the very real substantive problems confronting an administration that has more of its fair share of those as well.

This phenomenon goes beyond matters relating to Trump’s personal health or politics to matters of foreign policy on which previous administrations have previously operated on the assumption that, when the world is watching, it is critical to speak with precision and clear purpose.

Robert O’Brien, Trump’s national security adviser, told a university audience on Wednesday that the U.S. would draw down troop levels in Afghanistan to 2,500 by “early next year,” only to be contradicted by Trump a few hours later in a tweet that the U.S. would have all troops out of Afghanistan by Christmas.

What’s been going on in recent days is not an anomaly, but it does represent a new apogee in a trend that has been building for nearly four years. Trump has been waging an internal war within his administration since his first days in office. Often the targets have been people with independent judgment or significant records of achievement before joining the administration.

With few exceptions, Trump has won this war, and now has the team he wants. But it’s a Pyrrhic victory: He finds himself surrounded by people whose résumés typically would not land them in jobs at senior levels of the White House or Cabinet. Never mind the A Team. At this point, even the B Team would represent a significant upgrade.

Carlos Gutierrez, who was secretary of Commerce in the George W. Bush administration and had been chairman and CEO of Kellogg prior to his government service, said political appointees in the Trump administration have to “show absolute loyalty,” and such a loyalty oath has enacted a cost in terms of other qualities one looks for in potential staffers.

“Policy experience, knowledge, competence is not at the top of the list,” said Gutierrez, who is among the seven former Bush Cabinet members to have endorsed Joe Biden. “At the top of the list is: Who will be loyal to the president and [show] a blind loyalty?”

A situation like this does not just happen — Trump has had to work at it. As a rule, senior administration jobs are usually attractive enough that any president has the pick of people with extensive policy or political experience, or outstanding success in other highly competitive arenas.

This was true of the Trump White House initially, and Trump promised years ago to hire “only the best and most serious people.” Whatever one thinks of former White House chief of staff John Kelly or former Defense Secretary James Mattis, both are retired four-star generals. It simply isn’t possible to reach that level without formidable intelligence and a demonstrable leadership record. Whatever one thinks of Wall Street, no one gets to the top ranks of Goldman Sachs — as former Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn did earlier in his career — by being a nincompoop.

President Donald Trump, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
President Donald Trump, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows talk before Trump speaks with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House, Wednesday, July 29, 2020, in Washington. | Alex Brandon/ AP Photo

Current White House chief of staff Mark Meadows follows a tradition of White House chiefs of staff who come from Capitol Hill. But Meadows, elected to Congress as a tea party Republican in 2012, had never been Senate majority leader, like Reagan chief of staff Howard Baker, or a prominent committee chairman, like Clinton chief of staff Leon Panetta, or even a key player in a successful campaign to win majority status, like Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. He earned his stripes by leading the House Freedom Caucus, whose hallmark has been torpedoing legislation it doesn’t like, rather than spearheading major initiatives.

The same trend is pervasive, though not universal, in the Cabinet and sub-cabinet. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin did not have previous government experience, but he did fashion an impressive career on Wall Street, similar to previous occupants of the job, like Robert Rubin in the Clinton years. But at the Pentagon, Trump has gone from Mattis, one of the most respected figures in the national security establishment, to Mark Esper, a West Point graduate whose post-Army, pre-Trump career as a think tank veteran and lobbyist is respectable but not in line with the high-level government experience of most defense secretaries. At Homeland Security, Chad Wolf is acting secretary, not even confirmed, although he recently had his confirmation hearing after holding the job for 11 months. He previously was a lobbyist and the chief of staff to a predecessor. At Health and Human Services, Secretary Alex Azar does have previous high-level experience in that department but — both before the pandemic and during — has struggled for an effective working relationship with Trump and his West Wing.

Another issue many current White House aides face is a lack of knowledge of internal processes that are there for a reason: to ensure good outcomes and avoid making everyone look bad.

“They don’t have as full an understanding internally how the White House works, and they don’t have a full understanding of how the White House and the press work together during these sorts of crisis moments, which is different from during normal times in the White House when the relationships are more normalized,” said one former administration official.

“It’s been kind of an open secret that the administration had a very hard time finding qualified people to serve in government and that was from the beginning,” added one current administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity so as to not jeopardize their job.

A White House official said the charge that there are incompetent people at the White House is “ridiculous.”

“The best people are hired for these positions who are qualified regardless of experience or age or what have you,” the official said. “For every person who doesn’t want to work at the White House for some reason, there are like 10 other people in line who would kill for that job,” although the official did admit it wasn’t an “easy administration to work in.”

The source of much of the poor staffing in the White House and the administration that comes up time and time again in conversations with folks inside and outside the administration is the problematic role played by the Presidential Personnel Office, now headed up by 30-year-old former Trump body man Johnny McEntee, who’s viewed as the “keeper of the flame” in parts of Trump world, but despised in other corners for foisting unqualified, but sycophantic, young appointees — some even without college degrees — onto their agencies.

“I was initially dinged by the White House PPO because I wasn’t sufficiently groveling at the feet of Trump, and they had to take another look at me after apparently the secretary complained,” said the current administration official. “And I’m not alone. I know there are a lot of other people who are like that.”

The official slammed the “loyalty” interviews that PPO’s powerful White House liaisons conducted earlier this year of almost every administration appointee and called them an “inquisition.”

He recalled some of the questions: “Do you support the president? Are you going to stick around this term? Are you going to stick around for the next term? Blah, blah, blah. That kind of stuff. What has the president done that you’ve been so proud of? What is his biggest accomplishment? You know, crap like that.”

Meadows recently announced internally that many of the White House liaisons at the agencies were going to be replaced, leading to chatter in the administration about why McEntee didn't make the announcement himself. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson also publicly embarrassed McEntee by inadvertently letting reporters see his notes at a speech in late September, which revealed that he was “not happy” with how PPO was handling his department.

Chris Whipple, author of “The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency,” said a hobbled White House staff at the end of Trump’s first term is not surprising.

“This was a White House that was totally broken and dysfunctional long before the pandemic came along, and this was inevitable,” he said. “And it would be hard under Donald Trump to get high-caliber White House staffers prepandemic but during a pandemic, it’s mission impossible — especially when they basically abandon any protocols to keep people safe.”

Another obstacle to having good staff in the White House and administration is that in the last few months of the president’s term, it’s hard to recruit top-level talent for such a potentially short stint of public service.

“Obviously at the end of any term, it’s hard to attract people from the private sector to come in, because you have to impoverish yourself, you have to go through a huge long background check, and there’s a potential that you’ll only be here for a month,” one current White House official said.

Constant staff turmoil means it’s hard for officials in the administration to build trust among one another and establish professional relationships that make it easier to cooperate.

“Of course it does hurt decision-making,” acknowledged Fiona Hill, who served as senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council earlier in the Trump administration. “There’s been so much churn.”

（https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/11/amateur-hour-trump-white-house-428533）