Trump speaks to Puerto Rico officials after deriding mayor
US president, Donald Trump, spoke to senior officials in hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico, hours after lashing out at the mayor of San Juan who had pleaded for help and criticised the slow federal response.
Mr Trump, who spent the weekend at his Bedminster golf resort in New Jersey, accused Puerto Ricans through Twitter of wanting “everything to be done for them”, even as criticism grew that federal relief efforts amid hurricane damage have fallen desperately short.
While much of the US territory of 3.4 million remained without power, fresh water or communication links long after the catastrophic passage of Hurricane Maria, reports continued to filter in of battered towns across the island that have yet to receive any aid.
People queued for hours at San Juan petrol stations – some patrolled by private security guards – while desperate residents in the interior said reporters were the first outsiders they had seen.
“There’s been no help from Fema nor from the federal government nor from anyone,” said Elisa Gonzalez, 49.
But Mr Trump insisted on Saturday that federal emergency response teams and the US military, which has sent dozens of ships and about 10,000 troops, were doing a “fantastic job”.
Criticised for focusing more on protests by professional football players than on the disaster in the Caribbean, the White House said the president spoke to Puerto Rico governor Ricardo Rossello, former governor Luis Fortuno and Jennifer Gonzalez-Colon, who represents the island in congress but has no voting power.
Mr Trump also spoke to Kenneth Mapp, the governor of the US Virgin Islands – also hit hard by Hurricane Maria – and federal emergency management administrator head Brock Long, who briefed him “on the progress of current re-
US president insists federal emergency response teams and the US military are doing a ‘fantastic job’
sponse and recovery operations and provided details about the situation on the ground”.
In his tweets Mr Trump attempted to blame the island’s continuing woes on the Democrats, the media and local officials.
After San Juan mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz complained in impassioned remarks that “we are dying here, and I cannot fathom the thought that the greatest nation in the world cannot figure out logistics for a small island”, Mr Trump unleashed a Twitter rant.
“The mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump,” he wrote.
“Such poor leadership ability by the mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help.
“They want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort. 10,000 federal workers now on island doing a fantastic job.”
Puerto Ricans are US citizens but because of the territory’s status do not vote in presidential elections and have no real voice in congress.
Mr Trump’s earlier comments questioning who would pay for reconstruction given the territory’s financial debt were viewed by some as premature and distasteful.
The tweets drew a backlash from the ranking Democrat on the house homeland security committee, Bennie Thompson, who called them “abhorrent”.
Mr Trump’s suggestion that some Puerto Ricans did not want to work also appeared to stoke resentment at a time when many of the island’s first responders, desperately working to keep their own families alive, have been unable to join in the larger relief effort.
Yulin Cruz defended the remarks that Mr Trump had described as mean.
“Actually, I was asking for help,” she said. “This isn’t about me. This isn’t about anyone. This is about lives that are being lost if things do not get done properly real quickly.”
In a late afternoon Twitter blast about the government hurricane response effort, Mr Trump said: “To the people of Puerto Rico: Do not believe the #FakeNews!”