Low marks for Trump’s Puerto Rico response
WASHINGTON — Americans are more likely to disapprove than approve of President Donald Trump’s handling of the Puerto Rico hurricane relief effort.
According to a poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, just 32 percent approve of how Trump is handling disaster relief in the U.S. territory, while 49 percent disapprove.
“It took him how long to get to Puerto Rico?” said Bree Harris, a 25-year-old chef and Democrat from Los Angeles. She suspects Trump “didn’t even know that Puerto Rico was an island that was part of America. It’s embarrassing.”
Trump drew better marks for his handling of the recoveries after hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Forty-eight percent of Americans approve and just 27 percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of recoveries in U.S. states, including Texas and Florida.
The poll was conducted before Trump on Tuesday made his first trip to Puerto Rico, an island 1,000 miles from the mainland, after Hurricane Maria roared ashore Sept. 20 and knocked out all power. The federal response has drawn criticism and the administration has aggressively pushed back.
After lavishing attention and time on Texas and Florida, Trump tweeted his wish for Puerto Ricans to “be careful” just before the storm hit, but then didn’t talk publicly about the island’s post-hurricane struggles for days as he chose instead to fight with the NFL over some of its players kneeling for the national anthem. Critics said the president had failed to grasp the magnitude of Maria’s destruction as quickly as he had the twin wallops of Harvey and Irma.
A week later, Trump publicly tuned in to Maria’s aftermath. He sent multiple administration officials out to defend his response. He called briefings and meetings and insisted that helping Puerto Ricans was a top priority.
But Trump also suggested their suffering was partly the fault of officials who had allowed the island’s infrastructure and economy to degrade before the hurricanes and said local people should be doing more to help the recovery.