As Mayor of San Juan Sends an SOS to the President on ‘Maddow’ Trump Is Feverishly Tweeting

On the Crisis in Puerto Rico a ‘Sense of Urgency Didn’t Begin to Penetrate the White House Until Monday’

Every hour that goes by reveals, more and more, the dire emergency the people of Puerto Rico are experiencing, and just how poorly the Trump administration has and is handling this humanitarian crisis. As President Donald Trump one week ago Friday was attacking NFL quarterback Colin Kapernick at a campaign rally for Alabama’s Luther Strange, who would go on to lose to “Judge” Roy Moore, the U.S. territory was just regaining contact with the mainland U.S. after Hurricane Maria, the second massive storm to attack the island.

Trump would continue his attack on NFL players silently protesting police killings of often unarmed Black people for seven days, on Twitter and to the press, while the crisis in Puerto Rico was getting worse, not better.

In fact, just hours ago, The Washington Post reported that Trump spent last weekend at his golf club which “hurt the response to Maria.”

Even though local officials had said publicly as early as Sept. 20, the day of the storm, that the island was “destroyed,” the sense of urgency didn’t begin to penetrate the White House until Monday, when images of the utter destruction and desperation — and criticism of the administration’s response — began to appear on television, one senior administration official said.

Reports show the Trump administration had been repeatedly warned many times in the week before Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico that this was a storm of historic proportions, yet they did little to nothing as the president focused on tweeting his demands the NFL fire players who, as he said, were disrespecting America.

One way to respect America, of course, is to protect its people. In fact, President Trump wrongly has stated many times that his number one job and responsibility is to protect the American people.

(For the record, the oath of office states the President’s job is to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution,” which he also has not done.)

The mayor of San Juan has spent the past few days literally begging the federal government for help. Friday afternoon she gave up trying to be “politically correct,” as she said, and told the federal government at a press conference, “We are dying and you are killing us with the inefficiency.”

That mayor, Carmen Yulín Cruz, appeared on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” hours later, explaining in greater detail her anger and frustration. She said FEMA is asking the victims of Hurricane Maria to register online before they receive supplies, like food, water, and medicines. There is essentially no electricity in Puerto Rico, and therefore no internet. 

But literally at the same time as Mayor Yulín Cruz was desperately communicating the absolute disaster she and her fellow mayors and their people are facing, what was the president doing?

Tweeting.

In a barrage of retweets of posts tweeted first by his social media director, President Trump – as the mayor of San Juan was trying to get help via her interview with Rachel Maddow, to keep her people and the 3.5 million people on Puerto Rico alive – posted seven tweets.

The first was video of Kellyanne Conway telling Fox News how great the president’s tax plan is. Then, not one but two tweets literally advertising his son Eric’s appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity,” the Sean Hannity show that just moved to 9 PM. 

The fourth retweet was a video clip of Trump’s weekend address, talking about Puerto Rico. Falsely, Trump’s 58 second message ends with him saying, “It’s getting better on a daily basis.”

Not according to Mayor Yulín Cruz, who told Rachel Maddow it’s getting worse, not better.

Trump’s fifth retweet was an article from the far right wing website Washington Free Beacon, about manufacturer optimism. His sixth retweet was, again, of a Fox News story, this time touting the stock market records broken under Trump. And the seventh and so far last retweet was video of a Navy hospital ship’s captain – still in Virginia, ten days after Hurricane Maria – talking about what they will do once they get to Puerto Rico. Why they had time to talk to reporters, why they weren’t in Puerto Rico a week ago is anyone’s guess, but you can be darn sure one of the reasons they weren’t is because the Commander-in-Chief was on a seven-day racist rant about football players who understand that we show our respect for our flag by protecting and respecting our people.

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