PREZ SEES A’S, OTHERS SEE KATRINA

WASHINGTON — After engaging in a culture war over NFL protests, chastising Arizona U.S. Sen. John McCain over his health care vote, and wading into the Alabama U.S. Senate primary, President Trump finally turned his attention yesterday to the biggest American humanitarian crisis on his plate: millions in Puerto Rico struggling without power, adequate food, water or fuel more than a week after a direct hit by Hurricane Maria.

“People are dying,” U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez (DN.Y.), the first Puerto Rican elected to Congress, told CNN, urging Trump to “spend less time on putting out tweets and more time addressing this humanitarian crisis, because this is going to turn out to be Mr. Trump’s Katrina.”

That sentiment — that Trump, who quickly responded to the 2016 election red states of Texas and Florida after they were hit by similar monster storms, sees the U.S. territory as an afterthought — is bipartisan.

“The crisis for these Americans needs more attention, and more urgency from the executive branch,” tweeted Nebraska U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse.

Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio returning from the territory yesterday, said, “We have a fundamental obligation to Puerto Rico to respond to a hurricane there the way we would anywhere in the country.”

Trump pushed back on the criticism — not by demonstrating that federal resources in Puerto Rico were mobilized with the same urgency as on the mainland, but by sending a series of tweets blaming the island’s infrastructure and debt for the catastrophe, then boasting about his ratings.

“The mayor of San Juan was very generous and very nice this morning. He was thanking us for the great job we’ve done with FEMA,” Trump said at the White House yesterday. Note: San Juan’s Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz is a woman. She also said of Trump: “You don’t put debt above people.”

Trump continued, “You know, we’ve gotten A-pluses on Texas and on Florida, and we will also on Puerto Rico.”

But soon we will know if Maria becomes Trump’s Katrina, and if his ‘A-pluses’ comment rings in history like, “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job.”

“We know the island Puerto Rico has been totally destroyed, and we know what is needed,” said James Kendra, director of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware. “The question will be: has it been available, and were the right decisions made to move resources in that direction?

“Someone will make that assessment pretty soon,” Kendra said.