众所周知，前马萨诸塞州州长威廉·韦尔德和来自伊利诺伊州的前茶党议员乔·沃尔什对唐纳德·特朗普发起了主要挑战。每个人都知道he—and·沃尔什——他极有可能赢。将近90%的共和党选民支持总统。超过一半的人认为他比亚伯拉罕·林肯做得更好。更糟糕的是，一些州共和党已经做出了回应，取消了初选以避开其他党派。
韦德对say—and有很多看法，他毫不避讳地说it—from司法部长威廉·巴尔对美国参议院秘密反王牌的行政部门权力持极端观点。
换句话说，他仍然值得一听。
从尼克松被弹劾开始，韦德漫长的政治生涯持续了50年，包括在国会两院和里根司法部任职。在政治上，74岁的Weld属于species—the温和的乡村俱乐部Republican—rarely，近年来在野外看到，许多人认为它已经灭绝或者至少处于休眠状态。他在社会问题上的自由立场(支持选择)和支持科学的观点(认为气候变化是人为的紧急情况)以及财政保守主义的结合是对另一个时代的倒退。他认为，一旦特朗普下台，无论是弹劾还是输掉选举，共和党人都会把特朗普时代视为一个狂热的噩梦。即便如此，他认为共和党可能会被特朗普的经历严重分裂，以致于无法生存，而是分裂成两个新政党，类似于战前辉格党的情况。
新闻周刊在美国众议院司法委员会弹劾听证会前夕，尼娜·伯利和韦德坐下来讨论现代美国的状况。编辑摘录:
你在纽约认识唐纳德·特朗普已经有一段时间了。他成为总统之前，你对他的印象如何？
我们会在各种鸡尾酒会上偶遇唐纳德和梅拉尼娅，偶尔也会在晚宴上偶遇。这些年来，我认识一群和他做生意的人，不太开心。我的印象是，首先，他是纽约或新泽西最不诚实的商人。其次，他还不算太无礼。事实上，当我和他在鸡尾酒会上谈话时，他有点沉默。吹牛大王还没有开始。
你认为共和党人最初为什么聚集在他周围？
嗯，这不是一个自愿的拥抱。在他开始在民意测验中表现出来后，他们抵制了相当长的一段时间，我想他们认为他令人兴奋。同样，口号“排干沼泽”的选择也受到了启发。我认为他的支持如此强硬的原因是人们真的认为他赢得了对小偷的支持。他在华盛顿战胜了一切大而神秘的事物，他们不喜欢这样。我认为它不会持续到2020年11月。我认为他不会赢得选举。在弹劾程序中，一些国际灾难或灾难将会发生。或者可能只是人们厌倦了这些滑稽动作。很明显，一切都是关于他的，一切都指向他。选民并不愚蠢。他们可以学会这一点，过一段时间后，他们可能会怨恨这一点。
你从哪里感受到这种情绪？
无论我去哪里。底特律、新罕布什尔、迈阿密、奥斯汀、得克萨斯，但主要是新罕布什尔。我在康科德假日游行中行进，面前举着一面大横幅，以传统的方式在街上走来走去。人们会跑到街对面拍拍我的背说，“把那家伙带走。把那家伙带走。”他们不想说，“让我们谈谈特朗普。他不可怕吗？”他们什么也不想说，除了“你能把那家伙带走吗？”对我来说，这与我在全国范围内的发现是一致的，那就是人们不想谈论特朗普。我觉得它越来越薄了。
特朗普在法治方面给共和党重新贴上了标签吗？
当然，在参议院，他们对法治是敌人的想法感到不舒服。总统说过新闻自由是人民的敌人，正如你所知，这是每个独裁者手册中的一句话。任何想要成为独裁者的人都会试图打破他的目标之间的壁垒。新闻自由是壁垒，司法是壁垒。国会的调查权力是一道壁垒。事实上，在政府中还有其他人是权力中心，另一个堡垒，他对自己的做法非常聪明。我认为这就是为什么他更喜欢代理秘书而不是秘书。作为一名在华盛顿三次任职的老兵，一次在众议院，一次在参议院，一次在大法官的行政部门，我可以告诉你，当你参加公理会听证会时，如果你的头衔前面有“表演”这个词，你就没有影响力。总统在一些政治问题上很精明，其中之一就是他明白高层的权力真空意味着权力会回到椭圆形办公室，这正是他想要的。即使在特朗普兰，他也不想让独立思考的决策者出现。
你如何解释弹劾调查期间共和党在国会对他的一贯支持？
除了支持众议院的总统之外，没有共和党人投票，这让我感到惊讶。他们的报告只是说，“这里什么也没有。”就像，“我很开心，开心，开心，看着皇帝漂亮的新衣服。”我把它归因于对连任的痴迷。特朗普终于得到了他想要的。也就是通过恐惧来统治，他已经成功地召唤人们，让他们被打败。我认为两党的成员很长时间以来都痴迷于连任。它始于1994年的选举，随后随着极度不公正的选区划分和一系列其他发展，从那以后，情况逐年恶化。它不是特朗普发明的，但现在更糟，因为它是由椭圆形办公室里试图制造这种恐惧的人煽动起来的。我不明白的是，为什么他们如此痴迷于连任，但后来我成了美国任期限制的国家主席。
州长，共和党现在代表什么？
哦，一团糟。它显然不代表经济保守。我认为，在这场竞赛中，我显然是唯一真正的经济保守主义者，我将在气候变化等问题上坚持自己的立场，在这些问题上，我认为环保意识是唯一合理的立场，因为如果地球大气温度在本世纪中叶之前上升1.5摄氏度以上，极地冰盖就会融化。这些都是真实的事情，如果我们继续特朗普的观点，认为这整件事是由2000名科学家编造的骗局，那么它们都将发生，不管怎样，这些科学家很可能都在冒险。
在你的想象中，共和党在意识形态上将会在特朗普之后走向何方？
我想它会和以前一样。我认为世界上的保罗·瑞安，也许不是议长本人，而是他的同辈，将重新掌管共和党的事务。我和其他人一样认为，当特朗普击败goes—whether时，是在11月20日之前被免职，或者是在第二天11月2020—the选举期间，在全国担任领导职务的共和党人将会醒来并说，“这真的发生了吗？那四年？天哪？我昨晚肯定绑了一个，因为我简直无法想象。那是个噩梦还是真的发生了？”
特朗普之后，该党在人口方面将走向何方？
我不知道。我希望它比南部更分散一点。显然，如果他们继续攻击女性就不会了。这些生育权法律赋予强奸犯比女性更大的权利，这是真正的出路。想想看，赤字和气候变化这两大问题都是直接针对千禧一代的。
没有唐纳德·特朗普，该党还能生存吗？它会幸存吗？
嗯，不，我不确定它能不能活下来。其中，如果众议院和参议院的成员坚持特朗普和所有问题，并通过弹劾，进入20世纪的大选中，许多人将失去席位。你将在两院获得民主党的多数席位。也许甚至是一个轻松的多数，然后会有很多指责，我已经说了一段时间，我认为共和党可能会分裂成两个。这发生在他们的前任辉格党身上，该党在19世纪50年代因奴隶制问题分裂为两派。但是南方支持奴隶制的派别被称为一无所知党，他们的特点是暴力反移民抗议、阴谋论和暴力集会。他们是特朗普运动的先驱。另一半在1856年的选举中加入了自由战士约翰·C·弗里蒙特，然后在四年后继续选举亚伯拉罕·林肯为美国总统。我认为这种情况可能会再次发生，也许是我们天性中更好的天使，也许它甚至不会被称为共和党。也许它会被称为团结党，或者自由党，我并不是说这对国家来说是件坏事。
现在，让我们转到司法部。你在20世纪80年代辞职，因为司法部长埃德·米斯与韦德技术公司丑闻的问题，有人引用你的话说，一种“毒气”正从他的法律纠纷中蔓延到整个部门。你现在对司法部长比尔·巴尔有什么看法，以及他作为司法部长对这位正在接受调查的总统的积极作用？
比尔·巴尔出事了。我以前认识他。他是私营部门的一名强有力的律师，也是一名声誉卓著的司法部长。但是，当他在2018年6月向司法部提交了那份未经请求的备忘录，显然是在试镜美国司法部长的职位时，情况开始好转。他在信中说，根据宪法第二条，总统的权力是绝对的。比尔·巴尔最近阐述或接受的论文和论文，简直就是国王的神圣权利，那就是“这个人可以做任何事”，比尔·巴尔进城后不久，总统就明白了这一点，“我有第二条，这意味着我可以做任何事。我有第二篇文章。”他甚至可能不知道这篇文章也描述了总统的职责。他没有阅读职责部分，因为职责部分说，“总统应该注意忠实地执行法律。”我认为巴尔很有前途。
关于弹劾，你说过你认为共和党人在悄悄地说他们不反对。你能说得更具体些吗？
我说的是参议院，而这些数字仍然很小。他们是三，四，五。但是，正如亚利桑那州前参议员弗雷克所说，如果你在共和党核心小组的参议院中进行无记名投票，你将不会有20票赞成罢免，你将会有35票反对。我不认为核心小组会欣赏它，我也不认为米奇·麦康奈尔会欣赏被命令走上讲台。问题是如何获得无记名投票的实际效果。一种方法是让我们做一个现场测试。每个人都把他们的想法写在一张纸上，交给米奇。这样做的问题是，会有一些纸，人们在参与锻炼时会感到暴露。米奇已经很清楚他们在想什么。我认为，如果领导人麦康奈尔不得不做出选择，面对该党对总统对参议院核心小组所做的事情普遍不满，他会倾向于参议院，然后不惜一切代价挽救总统。
如果特朗普在2020年获胜会发生什么？
情况会变得越来越糟。史蒂夫·班农公开表示，“如果特朗普再次当选，你将会看到四年的无回报。”我现在主张参议院应该根据已经提供的证据解除总统职务的一个原因是，如果他们don't—and如果他逍遥法外，那么speak—he将在从现在到2020年11月间对世界上所有外国势力都这样做，以确保他们都干涉2020年对他有利的选举。选举可能无法避免被操纵。
据报道，你的策略全在新罕布什尔州。你希望民主党将登记为未申报的(选民)并加入政党。
我特别关注新罕布什尔州，但实际上我关注的是所有24个允许交叉投票的州。那是因为把我所有的时间都花在共和党和共和党的树上是没有用的...特朗普的死硬派。他们不会朝我这边来的。但外面有一个潜在选民的世界。我认为所有的女性，不仅仅是郊区的温和女性，还有所有的女性。我认为对于千禧一代和薛西斯将军来说，很难投票给一个政策如此明显直接违背他们利益的人。在新罕布什尔州，我在一个月内对特朗普先生提高了28个百分点。我上升了11点，他下降了17点。如果这种情况在row—and再发生两个月，我会有两个months—then，我会有51%。
你认为布隆伯格投入3000万美元做广告怎么样？
我是迈克·布隆伯格的超级粉丝。在纽约很了解他。我祝他在初选中好运。
如果他被提名反对特朗普总统，你会投他一票吗？
哦，一瞬间。一瞬间。在决赛中，我几乎会投任何民主党人的票，反对唐纳德·特朗普。
TRUMP CHALLENGER BILL WELD ON SECRET SENATE ANTI-TRUMPERS AND AG BARR'S EXTREME VIEWS ON EXECUTIVE BRANCH POWER
verybody, well most everybody, knows former Massachusetts Governor William Weld has mounted a primary challenge against Donald Trump along with ex-Teaparty Congressman Joe Walsh from Illinois. And everybody knows he—and Walsh—have a snowball's chance in hell of winning. Almost 90 percent of Republican voters are sticking with the president. More than half of them believe he is doing a better job than Abraham Lincoln. And to make matters worse, some state Republican parties have already responded by fending others off with cancelled primaries.
Weld has a lot to say—and he isn't shy about saying it—from Attorney General William Barr's extreme view of executive branch powers to the secret anti-Trumpers in the U.S. Senate.
He's still worth listening to, in other words.
Weld's long political career spans five decades, from Nixon's impeachment and includes stints in both houses of Congress and Reagan's Justice Department. Politically, Weld, 74, belongs to a species—the moderate, country club Republican—rarely seen in the wild in recent years, and presumed by many to have gone extinct or at least dormant. His combination of liberal positions on social issues (pro-choice) and pro-science views (believes climate change is a man-made emergency) and fiscal conservatism is a throwback to another era. He contends that once Trump is out of office, either by impeachment or by losing an election, Republicans will look on the Trump years as a bad fever dream. Even so, he thinks the GOP could be so badly divided by the Trump experience that it will not survive, but split into two new parties, similar to what happened to the Whig Party in the antebellum years.
Newsweek's Nina Burleigh sat down with Weld, on the eve of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearings, to discuss, among other things, the state of modern America. Edited excerpts:
You have known Donald Trump for a while in New York. What was your impression of him before he became president?
We would run into Donald and Melania at various cocktail parties and occasionally a dinner party. I knew a bunch of people who did business with him, not too happily, over the years. My impression was, first, that he had a reputation for being the most dishonest businessman in New York or New Jersey. And second, he was not terribly offensive (yet). Matter of fact, he was kind of quiet when he and I would be talking at a cocktail party. The braggadocio hadn't quite yet set in.
Why do you think Republicans gathered round him in the first place?
Well, it was not a willing embrace. They resisted for quite a while—and after he began to show in the polls I think they decided he was exciting. Also, the choice of the slogan, drain the swamp, was inspired. I think the reason his support has been so sticky is that people really do think that he has won against thieves so to speak. He's won against whatever's big and mysterious and in Washington, and they don't like it. I don't think it's going to last until November of 2020. I don't think he's going to win the election. Some international disaster or some disaster for him in the impeachment proceedings will happen. Or it could be just people getting tired of the antics. It's very clear that it's all about him and everything refers back to him. Voters are not stupid. They can pick that up, and over a period of time they may come to resent that.
Where are you picking up on that sentiment?
Wherever I go. Detroit, New Hampshire, Miami, Austin, Texas but mainly New Hampshire. I was marching in the Concord holiday parade with a big banner in front of me and crisscrossing from side to side of the street shaking hands the traditional way. People would run all the way across the street to clap me on the back and say, "Get that guy out of here. Get that guy out of here." They didn't want to say, "Let's talk about Trump. Isn't he awful?" They didn't want to say anything except, "Can you please get that guy out of here?" That to me is consistent with what I've found around the country, which is people don't want to talk about Trump. I think it's wearing thin.
Has Trump re-branded the Republican Party with respect to the rule of law?
Certainly in the Senate, they are not comfortable with the idea that the rule of law is the enemy. The President has said a free press is the enemy of the people, which is a phrase out of every dictator's handbook as you know. And it's the mark of any would-be autocrat to try to breakdown any bulwark between his aims. A free press is a bulwark, judiciary is a bulwark. The investigative power of Congress is a bulwark. The fact that you have other people in the administration who are power centers, another bulwark, he has been very clever about how he's gone about it. I think that that's why he prefers to have acting secretaries rather than secretaries. As a veteran of three stints in Washington, one in the House, one in the Senate, one in the executive branch of main Justice, I can tell you that when you go in for Congregational hearings if you have the word "acting" in front of your title, you have no clout. The president is shrewd about a number of political things and one of them is understanding that that power vacuum at the top means that that power devolves back to the Oval Office, which is just where he wants it. He doesn't want independent thinking decision-makers out there even in Trumpland.
How do you explain consistent Republican support for him in Congress during the impeachment probe?
Even I was surprised by there being no Republican votes other than backing up the president in the House. Their report just said, "There is nothing here." It's like, "I'm happy, happy, happy and look at the emperor's wonderful new clothes." I attribute it to an obsession with getting re-elected. Mr. Trump is finally getting what he wants. Which is to rule by fear, and he's had some success calling people out and causing them to be defeated. I think members of both parties have been obsessed with re-election for a long time. It began in the '94 election and then with hyper-gerrymandering and a bunch of other developments it's just gotten worse every year since then. It was not invented by Trump, but it's now at it's worse because it's being stoked by the person in the Oval Office who's trying to engender that fear. What I can't understand is why they're so obsessed with being re-elected, but then I was national chairman of U.S. Term Limits.
Governor, what does the Republican party stand for right now?
Oh, it's a mess. It clearly does not stand for being an economic conservative. I think I could be demonstrably the only true economic conservative in that race and I'll stake my own ground on issues like climate change where I think the environmentally conscious position is the only reasonable position to take because if the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere rises by more than 1.5 degrees centigrade prior to the middle of the century the polar icecap is going to melt. Those are all real things and they're all going to happen if we continue in Mr. Trump's view that this whole thing is a hoax made up by 2,000 scientists who were probably all on the take anyway.
Where will the Republican Party be ideologically after Trump in your imagination?
I think it'll be the same place it was before. I think the Paul Ryans of the world, maybe not the speaker personally, but his ilk, will come back into command of the affairs of the Republican party. I'm one of those who thinks when Trump goes—whether it's by removal before November '20 or during the election of November 2020—the next day Republicans in leadership positions all over the country are going to wake up and say, "Did that really happen? That four years? Holy cow. I really must've tied on one last night because I just can't imagine this. Was that a bad dream or did that really happen?"
Where will the party be demographically after Trump?
I don't know. I hope it's a little bit more dispersed than just in the deep south. Obviously, not if they continue the assault on women. These reproductive rights laws that give greater rights to rapists than they do to women are really way out there. And when you think about it, the two huge issues of the deficit and climate change are both guns aimed squarely at the heads of millennials.
Can the party survive without Donald Trump? Will it survive?
Well, no, I'm not sure it can survive. Among other things, if members of the House and Senate cling to Trump and all the issues and through the impeachment, and into the '20 election many, many of them are going to lose their seats. You'll have a Democratic majority in both houses. Maybe even a comfortable majority and then there will be much pointing of fingers, and I've been saying for some time that I think the Republican Party may split into two. That happened to their predecessor, the Whig Party, which split into two in the 1850s over the issue of slavery. But the southern pro-slavery faction became known as the know-nothing party and what characterized them were violent anti-immigrant protests, conspiracy theories, and violent rallies. They were forerunners of the Trump movement. And the other half joined John C. Fremont the Free Soilers in the election of 1856 and then went on four years later to elect Abraham Lincoln President of the United States. I think that could happen again and maybe the better angels of our nature wing, maybe it wouldn't even be called the Republican Party. Maybe it would be called the Unity Party, or the Liberty Party and I'm not saying that would be a bad thing for the country.
Now, let's move on to the Justice Department. You resigned in the 1980s, over Attorney General Ed Meese's issues with the Wedtech scandal and you were quoted as saying, a "poison gas" was spreading through the department from his legal troubles. What do you make of Attorney General Bill Barr right now, and his activist role as attorney general vis-a-vis this president under investigation?
Well, something has happened to Bill Barr. I knew him in the good old days. He was a strong lawyer in the private sector and a more than reputable attorney general. But the worm began to turn when he submitted that unsolicited memorandum in June of 2018 to the Justice Department plainly auditioning for the job of US Attorney General. In it, he said that the power of the president under article two of the constitution is absolute. The thesis and the theses expounded by or embraced by Bill Barr recently are nothing short of the divine right of kings, It's "this man can do anything" and the president picked this up soon after Bill Barr came to town saying, "I have an Article Two, which means I can do anything. I have an Article Two." He may not even know that the Article also describes the duties of the presidency. He didn't read the duties part because the duties part says, "The president shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." I think Barr is way out there.
Regarding impeachment, you have said that you think Republicans are quietly saying that they aren't against it. Can you be more specific?
I'm talking about the Senate and those numbers are still small. They're three, four, five. But as former Senator Flake of Arizona has said, if you put it to a secret ballot in the Senate in this GOP caucus you wouldn't have 20 votes for removal, you'd have 35. I don't think the caucus appreciates it, and I don't think Mitch McConnell appreciates being ordered to walk the plank. The question is how to get the practical effects of a secret ballot. One way would be let's just take a spot quiz. Everybody write down what they think on a piece of paper, give them to Mitch. The problem with that is then there are pieces of paper and people feel exposed just participating in the exercise. Mitch already damn well knows that what's on their minds. And I think if Leader McConnell had to pick, faced with widespread party dissatisfaction with what the President's doing to the Senate caucus, he would tilt toward the Senate before he would tilt to saving the president at all costs.
What happens if Trump wins in 2020?
It's going to get much, much worse. Steve Bannon has said publicly, "If Trump is re-elected you're going to see four years of unrequited payback." And one reason why I'm arguing now that the Senate should remove the president from office on the basis of evidence already produced is that if they don't—and if he gets away with it so to speak—he will be doing that with every foreign power in the world between now and November 2020, to make sure they all interfere in the 2020 election in his favor. It might be impossible to avoid that election being rigged.
Your strategy reportedly is all in New Hampshire. You're hoping the Democrats will register as undeclared (voters) and jump party.
I'm focusing on New Hampshire in particular, but in reality I'm focused on all 24 states that permit crossover voting. That's because it wouldn't serve me to spend all my time barking up the tree of the Republican state parties and the...Trump diehards. They're not going to come my way. But there's a universe of potential voters out there. I think all women, not just suburban moderate women, but all women. I think it's hard for the millennials and the Gen Xers to vote for someone who's policies so obviously fly right into the face of their interests. In New Hampshire, I moved 28 points in one month on Mr. Trump. I went up 11 and he went down 17. If that happens two more months in a row—and I've got two months—then I would be at 51%.
What do you think about Bloomberg jumping in with his $30 million to advertising?
I'm a big fan of Mike Bloomberg. Know him well from New York City. I wish him all the luck in the world in that primary.
Could you vote for him if he gets nominated against President Trump?
Oh, in a heartbeat. In a heartbeat. I would vote for virtually any Democrat in the final against Donald Trump.
