Trump’s closing message hits a topic close to his heart — but not voters’ minds

By the time President Donald Trump had concluded his hourlong closing argument speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Monday, the water in the basin behind him had become still, a perfect mirror of the Washington Monument and a grey November sky.

If the pool was finally operating as the administration always hoped it would, it’s not clear the president was.

His speech, billed as his final message to the electorate before a new Congress is chosen this week, was not the high-level contrast with Democrats some Republicans had hoped for. It was instead a subdued, very granular accounting of all the problems Trump said he fixed in the plumbing of the 2,000-foot-long pool, including rusty pipes, old joints, regraded rebar and “tremendous algae.”

Eight minutes in, before any mention of the midterm elections, Trump invited an aide named Greg to stand on stage holding large color photos as he recited in specific terms the fixes he’d ordered up. It took another 16 minutes before he made any mention of the elections he was ostensibly there to address.

While Trump was once relatively upbeat about Republicans’ prospects, his outlook has dimmed somewhat in the past several days, one White House official said, and his mood has soured.

The midterm talk only lasted 10 minutes or so on Monday. The rest of the time, Trump focused squarely on a topic that brings him more joy: the various repair jobs he claims to have carried out in the nation’s capital. He joked he would name the Reflecting Pool after himself. The crowd of invited guests numbered in the dozens.

Mark Schiefelbein/AP

As he was wrapping his remarks, the president frankly acknowledged his capacity for fixer-uppers didn’t extend much beyond the capital’s boundaries.

“We have a lot of great things planned for Washington,” he trumpeted. “I could get into the nation, but for that, you don’t have enough time.”

It was an odd way to end a campaign where voters have questioned again and again the president’s priorities. In interviews with voters across battleground states this midterm season, no one mentioned the Reflecting Pool or any other project in Washington on their list of most important issues.

But from another perspective, the speech was perhaps an apt way for the president to conclude a campaign that he orchestrated almost entirely around himself.

Many of the candidates running the tightest races now, including in Texas and South Carolina, are ones he hand-selected, often over the objections of other Republicans. An unusual midterm convention in Texas that Trump ordered up revolved around the president and his record. He has pleaded with voters to pretend he is on the ballot, making the election a referendum on his unpopular first two years back in office.

And he has insisted on amplifying the aspects of his agenda that many voters say have little or nothing to do with the things they care about most.

Many of the president’s allies have quietly worked to steer him toward more fertile ground, like his massive tax cuts or efforts to create manufacturing jobs.

But that has not worked. Trump mentions his construction projects virtually every time he speaks, often to somewhat muted reaction from the supporters he is addressing. Sometimes, like last week in Mississippi, the topic has drawn objection.

“Shove that ballroom up your fat ass!” a protester screamed, very clearly, midway through Trump’s speech in rural Corinth, 830 miles by car from the site of the new White House ballroom where the East Wing once stood.

Trump has said his focus on renovations relaxes him, and does not occupy a major portion of his time.

“I can do it naturally. It’s a natural thing,” he said in Mississippi, responding to a critique from former President Barack Obama that he was spending too much time and energy making the White House look like Saddam Hussein had gilded a Cheesecake Factory.

Aides have long said Trump is at his happiest when working on the renovation projects — which, aside from the ballroom and pool, also include a proposed triumphal arch, a new helipad, paved-over Rose Garden, driveway stone, guest bathroom, colonnade decor, portico plaster work, two 100-foot flagpoles and an ongoing attempt to inject as much gold as possible into the Oval Office.

The projects have not always gone to plan. Trump, in April, promised the Reflecting Pool repairs would be finished in two weeks, with a modest budget of $1.5 million. Weeks before a July 4 deadline, the blue liner he ordered began peeling off and blooms of algae materialized. It would take several more months, and millions more dollars, for the project to be finished.

Trump on Monday blamed the delays on vandals, but both the contractor he used and the US attorney’s office in Washington have said the fault was shoddy workmanship.

A frenetic campaign schedule had taken the president away from his projects for most of the last month. As recently as last week, GOP operatives expected Trump to spend the day before the midterms in a few battleground states, trying to rally Republicans to the polls.

But as his voice grew raspier last week and as he started complaining publicly about the pace — “I’ve been doing a little too many of these,” he said during his last rally in Kansas on Sunday — the plans were put aside.

And on Monday, he appeared to be over it.

Even in a speech about a topic he likes, Trump’s pessimism shone through.

“Usually whoever the sitting president is — Republican or Democrat, good or bad, good president, great president, bad — for some reason, the sitting president doesn’t win the midterms,” he said, glumly. “But we gave this a very strong shot.”

He wrapped up a few minutes later, standing alone on stage holding a photo of the algae-clogged pool as a trumpet fanfare played.

周一，当唐纳德·特朗普总统在林肯纪念堂倒影池前结束了长达一小时的闭幕演讲时，他身后的水池已经平静下来，完美地映照出华盛顿纪念碑和十一月灰蒙蒙的天空。

如果游泳池最终像政府一直希望的那样运转良好，那么总统是否也如此，目前还不得而知。

他的演讲被宣传为本周新一届国会选举前向选民发表的最后一次讲话，但并没有像一些共和党人所希望的那样，与民主党人形成鲜明对比。相反，他以一种低调而细致的方式，详细列举了特朗普声称已经修复的2000英尺长游泳池管道系统中的所有问题，包括生锈的管道、老化的接头、重新分级的钢筋以及“大量的藻类”。

演讲开始八分钟后，在提及中期选举之前，特朗普邀请一位名叫格雷格的助手上台，手持大幅彩色照片，详细列举了他下令进行的“整顿”措施。又过了16分钟，他才提到他此行表面上是为了谈论的选举问题。

一位白宫官员表示，虽然特朗普一度对共和党的前景比较乐观，但最近几天他的乐观情绪有所减弱，心情也变得糟糕起来。

周一的中期选举演讲只持续了大约十分钟。其余时间，特朗普完全专注于一个让他更乐于谈论的话题：他声称在首都华盛顿进行的各项修缮工作。他还开玩笑说要把倒影池以自己的名字命名。受邀嘉宾只有几十人。

马克·谢费尔贝因/美联社

在结束讲话时，总统坦率地承认，他有能力解决各种棘手问题，但他的能力也仅限于首都的边界之内。

他高声宣称：“我们为华盛顿制定了很多宏伟的计划。我可以向全国人民详细介绍，但时间不够。”

这场竞选以如此怪异的方式收尾，实在令人费解，因为选民们已经反复质疑总统的施政重点。在本次中期选举期间，我们对几个关键州的选民进行了采访，结果显示，在他们最关心的问题清单中，没有人提到过“倒影池”或华盛顿的任何其他项目。

但从另一个角度来看，这篇演讲或许是总统结束这场几乎完全由他自己策划的竞选活动的恰当方式。

目前选情胶着的许多候选人，包括在德克萨斯州和南卡罗来纳州的候选人，都是他亲自挑选的，而这往往遭到其他共和党人的反对。特朗普下令在德克萨斯州召开了一场不同寻常的中期选举大会，大会的焦点完全集中在他本人及其政绩上。他恳求选民假装他的名字出现在选票上，将此次选举变成对他重返总统岗位后不受欢迎的头两年执政表现的全民公投。

而且，他坚持要大力宣传他的施政纲领中那些许多选民认为与他们最关心的事情几乎无关或完全无关的内容。

总统的许多盟友一直在暗中努力引导他走向更有利的政策方向，例如大规模减税或创造制造业就业机会。

但这招并不奏效。特朗普几乎每次演讲都会提及他的建设项目，但支持者的反应往往比较冷淡。有时，比如上周在密西西比州，这个话题甚至会引发反对。

“把那间宴会厅塞进你肥屁股里去！”一名抗议者在特朗普于科林斯乡村发表讲话时清晰地喊道。科林斯距离白宫新宴会厅所在地（东翼曾经所在的地方）有 830 英里车程。

特朗普曾表示，专注于房屋翻新能让他放松身心，而且不会占用他太多时间。

“我可以很自然地做到这一点。这很自然，”他在密西西比州回应前总统巴拉克·奥巴马的批评时说道。奥巴马批评他花费了太多时间和精力，让白宫看起来像是萨达姆·侯赛因给芝士蛋糕工厂镀了金。

助手们一直表示，特朗普在进行翻新工程时最开心——除了宴会厅和游泳池之外，这些工程还包括拟建的凯旋门、新的直升机停机坪、铺设路面的玫瑰园、车道石、客用浴室、柱廊装饰、门廊灰泥工程、两根 100 英尺高的旗杆，以及不断尝试在椭圆形办公室里尽可能多地使用黄金。

这些项目并非总是按计划进行。今年4月，特朗普承诺倒影池的修缮工作将在两周内完成，预算仅为150万美元。然而，在7月4日截止日期前几周，他订购的蓝色内衬开始脱落，藻类大量滋生。最终，该项目耗时数月，花费数百万美元才得以完工。

特朗普周一将延误归咎于破坏者，但他雇佣的承包商和华盛顿的美国检察官办公室都表示，问题出在做工粗糙上。

过去一个月的大部分时间里，总统都忙于竞选活动，无暇顾及自己的项目。就在上周，共和党人士还预计特朗普会在中期选举前一天前往几个关键摇摆州，试图动员共和党选民投票。

但上周，他的声音变得越来越沙哑，而且他开始公开抱怨竞选节奏——“我参加的竞选活动有点太多了，”他在周日于堪萨斯州举行的最后一次竞选集会上说道——这些计划就被搁置了。

到了周一，他似乎已经释怀了。

即使是在谈论他喜欢的话题时，特朗普的悲观情绪也显露无疑。

“通常情况下，无论现任总统是谁——共和党人还是民主党人，好总统还是坏总统，好总统、伟大的总统还是坏总统——不知何故，现任总统都赢不了中期选举，”他沮丧地说。“但我们已经尽力了。”

几分钟后，他结束了演讲，独自站在台上，手里拿着一张藻类堵塞的游泳池的照片，此时响起了小号的号角声。