Trump touts 'amazing job'in Puerto Rico
He plans to visit island, U.S. Virgin Islands next week.
President WASHINGTON — Donald Trump on Tuesday
lamented that Puerto Rico had been “destroyed” by Hurricane Maria but insisted that his administration is doing an “amazing job” in helping the U.S. territory recover.
Trump, who has faced mounting questions about his commitment to addressing the island’s p light, announced that he would visit Puerto Rico next week to get a firsthand look at the “devastated” island, which remains without power and where residents are facing food shortages.
“We’re doing a great job,” Trump said during a Rose Garden news conference with visiting President Mari- ano Rajoy of Spain. “Every- body has said it’s amazing the job we have done in Puerto Rico. This was a place that was destroyed. I think we’ve done a very good job.”
Trump’s assessment was at odds with many reports on the ground and ran counter to a growing chorus of crit- ics, including lawmakers in both parties.
Earlier Tuesday, Trump told reporters that Oct. 3 was the earliest he could visit the island because of logistical issues.
“It’s the earliest I can go because of the first respond- ers, and we don’t want to disrupt the relief efforts,” Trump said at the outset of a White House meeting on tax reform with Republican
and Democratic lawmakers. Trump said he also plans to stop in the U.S. Virgin Isl ands, which suffered extensive damage from the storm.
After being praised for his response to hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which struck Texas and Florida, Trump has received lower marks for his response to Maria. Officials say they are facing numerous logistical chal- lenges, including damage to airports and ports. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency says its response has been robust, including the deployment of 10,000 federal workers.
“We’ve gotten A-pluses on Texas and in Florida, and we will also on Puerto Rico,” Trump pledged. “But the difference is this is an island sitting in the middle of an ocean. It’s a big ocean; it’s a very big ocean. And we’re doing a really good job. “We have shipped massive
amounts of food and water and supplies to Puerto Rico, and we are continuing to do it on an hourly basis,” he added. “But that island was hit as hard as you could hit.”
Criticism of Trump has come from Democratic pol- iticians, celebrities and oth- ers, focusing in part on the heavy attention he has put in recent days on his opposition to football players who kneel during the national anthem.
“At the same time that he was doing all of that, we had American citizens in Puerto Rico who are in a desperate
condition,” Hillary Clinton, who lost the presidential race to Trump last year, said in a radio interview Monday. “He has not said one word about them, about other American citizens in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I’m not sure he knows that Puerto Ricans are American citizens.”
Marc Anthony, the Latin pop singer, was more blunt, urging Trump on Twitter to “shut the (expletive) up about NFL.”
“Do something about our people in need in #PuertoRico,” Anthony wrote. “We are American citizens too.”
During the Rose Garden news conference, Trump
said the NFL issue had not been a distraction.
“I wasn’t preoccupied with the NFL,” Trump said. “I was ashamed of what was taking place.”
At the White House, Trump also insisted that “Puerto Rico is very important to me.”
“The people are fantastic people,” he said. “I grew up in New York, so I know many people from Puerto Rico. I know many Puerto Ricans. And these are great people,
and we have to help them.”