CMU students back San Juan mayor with letter

More than 150 students and graduates of Carnegie Mellon University’s public policy and management program are signing a letter supporting the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, a 1986 graduate of the program, as she navigates literal and political storm damage.

The students said the letter was not in response to the increasingly explosive political rift between the mayor and President Donald Trump but was an attempt to salute an alumna of a program for leadership in a crisis.

But that rift became a chasm this week.

Carmen Yulin Cruz has become one of the most prominent faces of relief efforts in the wake of the devastating Hurricane Maria, and she remains defiant in her criticism of the U.S. government response even as Mr. Trump has called her “nasty” and blamed her and other Puerto Ricans for wanting “everything to be done for them.”

The president on Thursday morning threatened to pull back relief efforts from the U.S. territory, where most of the 3.4 million American citizens on the island continue to live without power. Residents struggle to find clean water, hospitals are running short on medicine, and commerce is slow,

with many businesses closed, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

Mr. Trump said the island’s infrastructure was a “disaster before hurricane,” and he quoted a TV journalist on the island’s financial crisis “of its own making.”

In reply, she tweeted, “@POTUS your comments about Puerto Rico are unbecoming of a Commander in Chief they seem more to come from a ‘Hater in Chief.’”

She added: “It is not that you do not get it; you are incapable of fulfilling the moral imperative to help the people of PR. Shame on you!”

And she said he is using terms like “fake” and “political” to tag those he disagrees with. “NASTY!” she added, lobbing back a term he used to describe her earlier.

The CMU letter was also posted on social media Thursday morning but was written, and the signatures gathered, before the latest tweetstorms.

The signers are students and alumni from the university’s Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy.

The letter said that in “the midst of intense suffering you walked through San Juan’s flooded streets, handed out solar lanterns to your citizens, but most of all you comforted them. ... Rather than use your power to isolate yourself from the devastation, you chose to wade through floodwaters, a hyper-partisan U.S. government, and logistical barriers in order to save as many lives as possible.”

It said her work embodies the college’s founding vision of “Educating men and women for intelligent action.”

Libby Mucciarone, a student who helped organize the letter, said its intent was not to wade into the political tensions but to show that people from a place that’s part of her past are supporting her.

“We felt very inspired and in awe of her ability to handle what is a humanitarian crisis in such a strong and forthright way,” said Ms. Mucciarone, who is part of a Washington-based cohort of the Heinz program that emphasizes studies and work experience in the federal government,

Ms. Cruz was born in San Juan and earned a bachelor’s degree at Boston University. She graduated from CMU’s Heinz College in 1986 with a master’s of science in public policy and management.

Afterward Ms. Cruz went to work in human resources at Westinghouse and elsewhere before returning to her home city, entering politics and assembling a progressive coalition to be elected and re-elected as San Juan’s mayor.

The tensions between the mayor and the president have flared repeatedly since the hurricane.

In a tweet Sunday, Mr. Trump said: “Nobody could have done what I’ve done for #PuertoRico with so little appreciation. So much work!” The tweet included an embedded video showing U.S. military and civilian personnel and Red Cross workers providing relief aid, and ending with images of the president greeting Puerto Ricans during his brief visit there.

After Ms. Cruz disputed his administration’s claim in late September that Puerto Rico relief was a “good news story,” saying she was “mad as hell” at the federal response, Mr. Trump denounced her as acting “nasty” at the behest of Democrats. He said that Puerto Ricans “want everything to be done for them.”

In contrast, he has praised the governor of Puerto Rico, who has not criticized relief efforts.

Although Ms. Cruz has complimented those federal aid workers who have indeed provided relief, she said the U.S. government has mobilized much less of a response than it has in posthurricane Florida.

“I’m not going to play nice because I’m a woman and I’m supposed to play nice,” she said in a video interview that she retweeted on Monday. “I’m not going to play nice, because we’re here in the fight for our life.”

And she said the subtext of Mr. Trump’s denunciations of her is that “If you don’t criticize, then you’ll get help.”

After Mr. Trump on Wednesday tweeted that NBC should have its license reviewed because of a story he disputed, Ms. Cruz retweeted someone else’s comment that Mr. Trump is following in the footsteps of the late and current authoritarian leaders of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.