Focus on hyping his ‘great job’ as island cries for aid

hadn’t seen any of Puerto Rico’s wreckage firsthand.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Brock Long told “Fox News Sunday” that the Maria relief effort was “the most logistically challenging event the United States has ever seen.”

“The problem and the frustration is the way information is being misrepresented across the board,” Long said. “I don’t have time for that. What we have time for is being laser-focused to help Puerto Ricans.”

Those outside Trump’s administration had a vastly different view.

“The bottom line is at least for the first week and a half the effort has been slow-footed, disorganized and not adequate,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday at a news conference.

He pressed Trump “to stop calling names, stop downgrading the motives of people who are calling for help, but roll up his sleeves and get to work.”

Schumer also slammed Trump for waiting nearly two weeks to visit Puerto Rico, noting the President had traveled to Texas twice in that time when Harvey struck. Trump plans to go to the island Tuesday.

Critics have also blasted Trump for tweets he made Saturday, in which he implied that Puerto Ricans were lazy. “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,” Trump wrote. He added, “They want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort.” Mayor de Blasio joined the chorus of critics. “How dare President Trump denigrate the Puerto Rican people who have done so much for this city and this country,” he said during a speech at Promised Land Covenant Church in the Bronx. “There is nothing lazy about the Puerto Rican people. They’re not feeling entitled; the only person feeling entitled is Donald Trump.” Since Saturday, Trump has tweeted nearly 20 times in defense of the administration’s efforts. He also blasted Cruz, who has railed at the government’s response, saying she showed “poor leadership” and had been “told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump.”

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello (photo inset) was careful Sunday not to enter the fray.

“I don’t feel that (Trump’s) message was sent in general,” Rossello said. “I am committed to collaborating with everybody.”

Rossello told reporters Sunday that almost 1 million barrels of gasoline and more than 500,000 barrels of diesel fuel would arrive in Puerto Rico over the next two days. The fuel will power emergency generators and trucks that can deliver water and other supplies to desperate islanders.

“We need to do a lot more in order for us to get out of the emergency,” Rossello said. “But the other thing that’s also true is that the administration has answered and has complied with our petitions in an expedited manner.”

Eleven days after the island was hit by Maria, many basic services remain down. Almost half the population still has no access to drinking water, authorities said. A mere 14% of cell towers were operational. And only about 5% of the population has electricity.

Cruz said Sunday, “There’s only one goal, and it’s saving lives,” adding that all she did “was ask for help.”

But Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the Broadway hit “Hamilton,” who made headlines by saying Saturday that Trump was “going straight to hell,” continued to bash the President on Sunday. “I will never forget it,” Miranda, who has family ties to Puerto Rico, tweeted about Trump's Twitter rants. “Neither will history. Neither will God.”