HECKUVA
PRESIDENT TRUMP whipped up a whirlwind of gaffes Tuesday during his first visit to storm-ravaged Puerto Rico, where he complained about the costs of hurricane damage, belittled the scope of the devastation, repeatedly patted himself on the back, and tossed paper towel rolls like basketballs into a crowd in a church.
“I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you are throwing our budget out of whack,” Trump said in a meeting with officials and relief workers, drawing a few stunned chuckles from the room.
“We spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico, and that’s fine. We saved a lot of lives.”
He went on to thank the first responders and the Coast Guard for their roles in saving lives while braving the wreckage of the monster storm.
But later, he said Puerto Ricans should be “proud” of the fact that 16 people died from Maria, compared with the higher death toll of Hurricane Katrina, which he deemed “a real catastrophe.”
“Every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the tremendous hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and you look at what happened here and what is your death count? Sixteen people, versus in the thousands,” Trump said.
“You can be very proud. Sixteen versus literally thousands of people.”
Later Tuesday, the governor of Puerto Rico said the death toll had more than doubled to 34.
Katrina, which ravaged New Orleans in 2006, killed more than 1,800 people — a staggering toll, but not the “thousands” Trump claimed.
And the damage from the storm has been a real catastrophe.
As of Tuesday, 95% of electricity customers on the island still do not have power, and less than one-fifth of its cell towers are functional.