2026-05-22T04:01:08.416Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
唐纳德·特朗普正在对总统印章上的文字做过于字面的解读——“合众为一”，其含义是“合众为一”。
在这个令人头晕目眩的一周里，这位总统进一步将其总统任期聚焦于为“一”——也就是他自己——谋利，而对“众”——数百万陷入经济负担危机的美国人——的困境愈发漠视。
就连一向顺从的参议院共和党人也不再坐视不管。
每位总统都会运用权力来推行政策和政治目标，其中一些目标源于他们自身的执念。但特朗普比其近期的任何一位前任走得都更远，他将总统职位用作个人权力的工具。
在本周最不同寻常的举措中，特朗普动用行政权力为自己谋取了极大的个人私利：他领导的司法部“永久”禁止国税局对总统及其家族过往的税务事务进行审计。
这项声明是一起有争议的和解协议中的条款之一，该协议源于特朗普针对其政府提起的100亿美元诉讼，起因是他的纳税申报单被泄露。这一情况令人不安，因为它似乎意味着总统正利用其独特职权为自己争取一项其他公民无法享有的权利。
和解协议的另一项内容是设立一个17.76亿美元的基金，用于赔偿那些声称自己是拜登政府“武器化司法”受害者的公民。这或许是特朗普2024年竞选口号“我是你们的复仇”最具体的体现。
人们担忧该计划可能会让2021年美国国会大厦骚乱中的数百名定罪者获得经济补偿——当时部分特朗普支持者殴打警察——这甚至让一贯“橡皮图章”式的共和党参议院多数党都感到不安。
代理司法部长托德·布兰奇推迟了前往明尼苏达州的行程，原本他计划在那里曝光所谓的民主党腐败问题，转而开展危机公关。
但缅因州参议员苏珊·柯林斯——一位资深拨款委员，正希望反特朗普的浪潮不会让她在11月的中期选举中落选——表示：“我不认为那些在1月6日因暴力袭击警察而定罪的人，有权获得法律费用的报销。”
北卡罗来纳州共和党参议员汤姆·蒂利斯即将退休，因此可以直言不讳，他评价该计划称：“这简直是愚蠢透顶。”
路易斯安那州参议员约翰·肯尼迪补充道：“我完全不知道这个‘项目’会如何运作。我不清楚资金从何而来，也不确定谁来做决定。”
前参议院共和党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔的批评更为尖锐。这位肯塔基州参议员表示：“国家最高执法官员竟然申请一笔‘黑金基金’来支付袭击警察的人？这完全是愚蠢之举，在道德上也是错误的——随便你怎么说。”
若不是特朗普执意推行一项令人瞠目结舌的个人优先事项——奖励那些支持他2020年选举舞弊虚假主张的支持者，这场反叛本不会发生。但结果适得其反，僵局导致参议院在阵亡将士纪念日休会前未能通过他的一项优先法案——一项大规模的移民执法拨款法案。
特朗普成功的关键之一在于他的厚颜无耻。这听起来或许像是批评，但这种特质让他摆脱了传统束缚，让支持者欢欣鼓舞，并让他能够随心所欲地行事。
大多数总统如果被指控在全国经济紧缩之际推行价值数百万美元的个人虚荣项目，可能会试图掩盖此事。但这位第45任、第47任总统不会。他对此引以为傲，正如他热情地带领记者参观他的白宫宴会厅项目时所展现的那样，该项目很快将在古老的东翼留下的空地上拔地而起。
“我一生中最擅长的就是建造，”特朗普周二说道，同时展示了这座华丽建筑的设计图，并透露了一个令人震惊的消息：屋顶还将容纳“最伟大的无人机帝国”，用于保护华盛顿。
特朗普的批评者抨击他的宴会厅项目是腐败和滥用职权。他们谴责他计划在华盛顿遍地修建旨在确保其个人遗产的建筑，这些建筑将在他卸任后很长一段时间内矗立在城市上空。一座将破坏波托马克河附近纪念碑视野的巨型凯旋门就是另一个例子。
特朗普坚称这些项目并非都与他有关，而是一项早就该进行的美化工程的一部分，该工程将彰显一个自豪且雄心勃勃的国家，以及过去几任总统任内变得破败不堪的首都。
“我是在给美国赠送这个宴会厅，”这位总统说道，他提到将由私人企业捐款为该项目提供资金，并无视此举引发的诸多伦理问题。但特朗普还希望将数百万美元的纳税人资金拨给特勤局，用于宴会厅下方的掩体和安全升级工程。
他坚称这并非“劳民伤财的项目”，而是为国家服务，能够“数百年来”保护总统。
“我们是在给美国送礼物，”特朗普周四表示，“不是为我自己，因为我会离开——你知道，我会离开，会有其他人接任。”
特朗普理应被给予怀疑的余地吗？或许他是真诚的。尽管如此，他的政府近期以自己的名字命名建筑的行为——例如美国和平研究所和肯尼迪中心——削弱了这种更为宽宏大量的看法。首都多座联邦建筑上悬挂的他的肖像横幅也起到了同样的效果。
即便特朗普的动机纯粹是爱国的，这也能说明他的优先事项：本周他宣称由他发动的伊朗战争导致的汽油价格上涨不过是“小意思”，同时却沉迷于此类事务。
所有这一切都为民主党人提供了绝佳的攻击口实。例如，民主党参议员克里斯·范·霍伦站在他那座“镀金的、由纳税人出资的宴会厅”旁，抨击特朗普的荒谬言论。他在X平台上写道：“特朗普优先，劳动美国人靠后。”
如果说这个宴会厅算是一份礼物，大多数美国人可能并不想要。11月《华盛顿邮报》/美国广播公司/益普索的一项民调显示，56%的受访者反对拆除东翼并修建宴会厅的决定。
如果在特朗普看来这些场面并不糟糕，但参议院共和党人却不这么认为，他们正在反抗他的宴会厅项目和赔偿基金。周四在椭圆形办公室接受采访时，当被问及参议院这次罕见的强硬表态时，总统似乎不知道该如何回应。
“我不知道。我真的不知道。我只能说，我只做正确的事。”他说道。
随着特朗普的支持率处于历史低位，民调显示美国人将经济前景恶化归咎于他的政策，宴会厅和赔偿基金引发的愤怒可能会加剧他的政治困境。
这位总统有时正是自己最大的敌人。本周一连串的争议掩盖了白宫为说服美国人总统确实理解他们的挫败感所做的努力。这些努力包括扩大特朗普处方药网站，以降低药品价格，该网站现在将包含600种仿制药，包括治疗胆固醇和糖尿病的药物。
具有讽刺意味的是，参议院共和党人的反叛发生在这样一周：特朗普再次利用他对“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）选民基础的掌控权，展示了他惩罚那些他认为背叛了自己的议员的权力。肯塔基州众议员托马斯·马西因在伊朗问题和爱泼斯坦文件上违抗总统，成为最新一位被特朗普支持的初选挑战者击败的传统保守派。值得注意的是，总统在选举前称他“不忠诚”。
另一位共和党人、得克萨斯州参议员约翰·康恩目前也面临初选失败的风险，此前特朗普支持了他的挑战者肯·帕克斯顿。康恩尽管数月来一直试图讨好特朗普，但他的明显过错在于对特朗普的支持不够“狂热”。特朗普称这位在任参议员是“好人”，但补充道，他“在艰难时期并不支持我”，还指责康恩迟迟不支持他2024年的总统竞选。
在这种情况下，将自身利益放在首位可能会反过来困扰特朗普，因为许多民主党人认为，他们在得克萨斯州赢得关键参议院席位的最佳机会，就是与帕克斯顿展开角逐。
这些成为特朗普“复仇行动”新受害者的人——名单还包括路易斯安那州参议员比尔·卡西迪——只会加深这样一种印象：总统与其说将职位视为推动政策变革、改造国家的工具，不如说将其当作个人权力的载体。
这并非新趋势。过去16个月里，不乏特朗普利用职权为自己谋利的例子。其中包括他向大型律师事务所施压，使其提供数小时的无偿代理服务，以及他接受卡塔尔赠送的豪华波音747作为新的“空军一号”——该飞机目前正由纳税人出资进行升级改造。
与此同时，特朗普的批评者指责他利用职权为自己的企业谋利——例如，他去年宣布今年的二十国集团（G20）领导人峰会将在他位于佛罗里达州的多拉高尔夫度假村举行。
此类批评不会动摇特朗普最忠实支持者的承诺，他们中的许多人将他视为倾听了他们对政治体系和全球化经济的焦虑的唯一政治人物，他们认为这些体系和经济将他们抛在了身后。
但他的批评者认为他从政是为了自己。而这位总统正在用一场典型的以自我为中心的第二任期，为他们提供了大量证据。
Trump’s second term is increasingly about one thing: Trump
2026-05-22T04:01:08.416Z / CNN
Donald Trump is putting an overly literal spin on the words in his presidential seal — e pluribus unum, meaning, “out of many, one.”
In a head-spinning week, the president further focused his presidency on benefiting the one — himself — while looking even more oblivious to the many — the millions of Americans trapped in an affordability crisis.
And even normally pliant Senate Republicans aren’t standing for it.
Every president flexes power to pursue policy and political goals, some arising from their own obsessions. But Trump is going further than any of his recent predecessors to use his office as a vehicle of personal power.
In the week’s most extraordinary move, Trump used his executive power to extraordinary personal advantage, with his Justice Department “forever” barring IRS audits into past tax affairs of the president and his family.
The declaration was among terms of a controversial settlement arising from a $10 billion Trump lawsuit against his own government over his leaked tax returns. It’s troubling because it appears to involve a president using his unique authority to award himself a right not available to other citizens.
Another part of the settlement involves the creation of a $1.776 billion fund to compensate citizens who claim they were victims of weaponized justice in the Biden administration. This may be the most tangible example of Trump’s campaign mantra in 2024, when he told huge rallies, “I am your retribution.”
Fears the plan could enrich hundreds of people convicted in the US Capitol riot of 2021, when some Trump supporters beat up police, perturbed even the rubber-stamp Republican Senate majority.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche postponed a trip to Minnesota to highlight alleged Democratic corruption to mount a damage control operation.
But Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a top appropriator who is hoping an anti-Trump backlash won’t sweep her out of the Senate in November’s midterm elections, said: “I do not believe individuals that were convicted of violence against police officers on January 6 should be entitled to reimbursement of their legal fees.”
North Carolina GOP Sen. Thom Tillis, who has the luxury of bluntness because he’s about to retire, said of the plan: “This is just stupid on stilts.”
And Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy added: “I just don’t know how this puppy dog will work. I’m not sure where the money’s coming from. I’m not sure who’s going to decide.”
Former Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell was even more caustic. “So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong – Take your pick,” the Kentucky senator said.
The revolt would not have happened had not Trump set out to pursue an eye-popping personal priority — rewarding supporters who backed his false claims of 2020 election fraud. But it backfired badly, since the impasse led to the Senate leaving town for the Memorial Day recess without passing one of his priorities — a huge immigration enforcement funding package.
One key to Trump’s success is his shamelessness. That might sound like a criticism. But it’s a quality that frees him from conventions, delights his supporters and allows him to do exactly what he wants.
Most presidents, if accused of pursuing a personal vanity project worth millions of dollars at a time of nationwide economic stringency, might try to keep it under wraps. Not the 45th and 47th president. He’s proud of it, as he showed when enthusiastically leading reporters on a tour of his White House ballroom project, soon to rise from the hole left by the antique East Wing.
“What I do best in life is build,” the president said Tuesday, while showing off plans for the ornate edifice and revealed the startling news that the roof will also house “the greatest drone empire” to protect Washington.
Trump’s critics have blasted his ballroom as corrupt and an abuse of power. They decry his program to litter Washington with structures meant to ensure his personal legacy, which will tower over the city long after he’s left office. A massive triumphal arch that will destroy monument sight lines near the Potomac is another example.
Trump insists that such projects are not all about him, but rather part of a long-overdue beautification project that will epitomize a proud and ambitious nation and a capital city that past presidents allowed to grow decrepit.
“I’m making a gift of the ballroom,” the president said, referring to the private corporate donations he said will finance the project and ignoring the multiple ethical problems this raises. But Trump also wants millions of dollars of taxpayer cash channeled to the Secret Service to fund a bunker and security upgrades under the ballroom.
He insists it’s not a boondoggle but rather a service to the nation that could protect presidents for “hundreds of years.”
“We’re making a gift to the United States,” Trump said Thursday. “Not for me because I’ll be gone — you know, I’ll be gone and you’ll have somebody else in.”
Should Trump get the benefit of the doubt? Perhaps he is sincere. Still, his administration’s spree of naming buildings after the boss — such as the US Institute for Peace and the Kennedy Center — undercuts a more magnanimous view. So do banners of his face that now adorn several federal buildings in the capital.
And even if Trump’s motives are purely patriotic, it says something about his priorities that he’s fixated on such matters while this week declaring that rising gas prices, caused by his war in Iran, amount to mere “peanuts.”
All of this offers Democrats an easy opening. Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen, for example, blasted Trump’s nutty soundbite while he was standing beside the site of his “gold plated, taxpayer funded ballroom.” He wrote on X, “Trump first, working Americans last.”
If the ballroom is a gift, most Americans could do without it, according to a Washington Post/ABC News/IPSOS poll in November that showed 56% opposed the decision to tear down the East Wing and build a ballroom.
If the optics don’t seem iffy to Trump, they do to Senate Republicans, who are revolting against both his ballroom and the weaponization fund. The president didn’t seem to know exactly how to respond, when asked about this novel show of steel by the Senate during an Oval Office appearance Thursday.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know. I can tell you, I only do what’s right,” he said.
The furors over the ballroom and the compensation fund threaten to worsen Trump’s political plight as he suffers historically low approval ratings, and polls show Americans blame his policies for worsening their economic prospects.
The president is sometimes his own worst enemy. This week’s flurry of controversies overshadowed the efforts the White House is making to convince Americans that the president really does recognize their frustrations. These include the expansion of the Trump RX website designed to lower drug prices, which will now feature 600 generics, including cholesterol and diabetes treatments.
Ironically, the GOP Senate revolt came in a week when the president once again harnessed his dominance of the MAGA base to show his power to punish lawmakers who he believes have wronged him. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie became the latest traditional conservative to lose to a Trump-backed primary challenger after defying the president on Iran and the Epstein files. It was significant that the president slammed him as “disloyal” just before the election.
Another Republican, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, is now in danger of losing his primary after Trump backed his challenger Ken Paxton. Cornyn’s apparent transgression, after months trying to butter up Trump, is not being sufficiently fanatical about his support. Trump said the incumbent was “a good man” but added that he was not “supportive of me when times were tough,” and he accused Cornyn of being slow to endorse his 2024 White House run.
Putting himself first in this context might come back to haunt Trump, since many Democrats believe their best chance to win a critical Senate seat in Texas is a race against Paxton.
These new victims of Trump’s retribution campaign — a list that also includes Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy — only add to the impression that the president sees his position less as a way to enact policy change to transform the country than as a vehicle of personal power.
This is not a new trend. The last 16 months have bristled with examples of Trump apparently using his office to benefit himself. This includes his pressuring of big law firms, which resulted in hours of pro bono representation, and his acceptance of a luxury Boeing 747 from Qatar to serve as a new Air Force One — which is being updated at taxpayer expense.
Trump’s critics, meanwhile, accuse him of using his position to benefit his own businesses — for example, this year’s G20 summit of world leaders which he announced last year will be held at his Doral golf resort in Florida.
Such critiques won’t shake the commitment of Trump’s most loyal supporters, many of whom revere him as the one political figure who heard their angst about a political system and a globalized economy they believe left them behind.
But his critics think he’s in it for himself. And the president is giving them plenty of evidence in a quintessentially self-absorbed second term.
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