Trump’s statements about Puerto Rico is causing some GOPer’s to NOT agree with their party leader….
In public….
Ron DeSantis, the Republican nominee for governor in Florida, has embraced Donald Trump as forcefully as he can during the campaign. But there is one road down which DeSantis won’t follow the president: questioning the death count in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.
The president cast doubt on the official death count from last year’s hurricane in a series of tweets on Thursday morning. Though the estimate of 3,000 deaths comes from official government sources, Trump suggested that Democrats had manufactured the numbers to make him look bad because the initial death toll from the hurricane was much lower. But experts and independent analysis had long said the death toll was much higher than the original official estimate of 16.
DeSantis, who is running to be governor of a state where many Puerto Ricans have relocated after Maria, said in a statement Thursday that he “doesn’t believe any loss of life has been inflated.”…
San Juan mayor dismisses Trump’s ‘unsung success’ view of Maria response
Luis Valentin Ortiz
SAN JUAN (Reuters) – San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, a vocal critic of U.S. President Donald Trump’s treatment of Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, rejected his characterization of the administration’s response as being an “unsung success.”
Cruz told Reuters on Wednesday that people facing Hurricane Florence, a slow-moving Category 3 storm due to hit the Carolinas, could die unless Trump learned lessons a year ago when Maria slammed into the U.S. commonwealth.
“The world has seen and the majority of the American people have seen how neglectful he was towards the people of Puerto Rico. If he calls a success or an unsung success 3,000 people dying by his watch, definitely he doesn’t know what success is,” Cruz said.
“If he thinks this is about him and about politics and about positioning himself, he is going to make the same mistakes and people will die as they did die in Puerto Rico,” she said.
….
A study ordered by Puerto Rico’s government found the Category-4 storm killed an estimated 2,975 people either directly or indirectly from the time it struck in September 2017 to mid-February. Maria knocked out power to all 3.4 million residents and left thousands without a home.
Although the San Juan mayor sees some improvement in Puerto Rico’s recovery, she believes there is still much that needs to be done.
There are still, for instance, about 45,000 homes with “blue roofs,” as tarps installed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are called.
“These people are not now going to be able to withstand even a Category 1 hurricane in their homes”, she said.
As for the almost $50 billion in federal funds already approved by Congress for Puerto Rico’s rebuilding, Cruz said most of it had not been disbursed by the federal government.
While accepting that Puerto Rico’s economy remains weak and in need of aid, Cruz stressed that whatever resources the federal government can provide should go to address the emergency on the U.S. East Coast as it braces for Hurricane Florence.
“North Carolina and South Carolina are going to be running into a life and death situation. We are not in a 100 percent life and death situation,” Cruz said.
“When the government left us to die, the American people reached out to us. So it is time to pay it forward. If resources have to be taken away from here to save lives in North Carolina and South Carolina, we will manage,” Cruz said.
Trump said on Tuesday that his administration was “totally prepared” for Florence and would spare no expense in responding to it.
“Nobody is ready for a hurricane (Category) 5 or 4,” Cruz warned….
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-storm-maria-puertorico-mayor/san-juan-mayor-dismisses-trumps-unsung-success-view-of-maria-response-idUSKCN1LT0BH
This story about Trump’s make believe world is the barn burner story on the current storm….
The guy has the ability to mess up just about EVERYTHING for his OWN self interest