Cora sick of P.R. politics
Takes issue with Trump tweets
It’s been nearly one year since Hurricane Maria began its destruction of Puerto Rico. Since then, Alex Cora has done his best to provide aid and support for his native country — and he certainly knows people who have been severely impacted by the disaster.
But there’s also been a great deal of debate regarding the United States’ response to the hurricane. Yesterday, President Donald Trump fueled the ongoing controversy in two tweets, denying the number of lives that were lost as a result of the hurricane, and accusing Democrats of inflating the number. Last month, the government reported the number of deaths as a result of the storm at nearly 3,000.
Before last night’s series finale against the Blue Jays, Cora was asked about Trump’s tweets. The Red Sox manager called them “disrespectful” and voiced his disappointment about how the discussion has become political.
“The timing, I thought he was going to mention something in a few days, Sept. 16,” Cora said. “Now that he got ahead of himself. You know, 3,000, six, 18 (Trump wrote that there were ‘anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths’ when he left the island). I don’t know. We will never know how many, how many we lost. I hate that people make it a political issue. This is about human beings. The people that went through this, they know what happened. You know, we have, our population, 19 percent of our population are elderly. It’s old people, just put it that way. And the effect of Sept. 16, the rain, and the winds and whatever happens, maybe 18 people died. But the aftereffects, people don’t talk about that. And when you don’t have food, you don’t have water, no communication, no medicine, then this happened. And one thing for sure, we — the government helped. We do feel that they helped us. I don’t know if it was efficient, it was enough, I don’t know . . . .
“The one thing for sure, the Red Sox helped. The Cubs, the Pirates, the Houston Astros. There’s a lot of people in the states (and) they’re still helping us. To be tweeting about 3,000 people and be efficient, it’s actually disrespectful for my country. We see it that way. I know probably he doesn’t feel that way. And like I said, hey man, thank you for helping us. He went down there, he did what he did. I hate talking about politics and all that, but I think this is more than politics. This is about a country that really suffered, we still, you see the hurricanes forming now. Everybody’s panicking. It’s not easy. …
“One thing’s for sure, and I told you guys before, one thing I’m proud, we’re standing up on our own two feet. Like, do we need help? Yeah, we do. We know that. But we’ve been battling through it. We’re not where we were. But we will be there. And it’s just a matter of time. But you know it’s a little bit kind of like frustrating that the topic keeps coming and coming and coming. What’s the point, honestly? And I respect him. He’s the president of the United States. But I don’t agree with a lot of stuff that he says about us.”
Back in January, Cora and a group from the Red Sox traveled to Puerto Rico to distribute aid. And when Cora was with the Astros during the storm, team chairman and owner Jim Crane led an effort to send relief to the country, something Cora voiced his appreciation for again.
Cora said there are a lot of people still struggling in Puerto Rico, but he seemed encouraged by the progress that’s been made.
“We know a lot of people that right now, they’re still suffering,” Cora said. “They don’t have a roof. They have a tarp. And there are people in the country like in the mountains, they have no water. They just found out, there was a military base in a town in the east coast that they found, I don’t know how many bottles of water. Just in the runway. And it’s been there for six months. And FEMA kind of like fumbled that one, from what I heard. There’s a story after story after story. And you know, it’s been a struggle, but like I said man, hey, we’re better in the last year, obviously. We’re better than yesterday. We keep getting better. And it’s just a matter of time for us to be that enchanted island, like back in the day.”