‘They Want Everything to Be Done for Them’ Trump Says of People Who Are Drinking Water From a Creek
President Donald Trump unleashed a barrage of tweets early Saturday morning from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he’s been since Friday afternoon. In his tweet storm he attacked the mayor of San Juan as a poor leader and the people of Puerto Rico as lazy.
Puerto Rico this month has been literally destroyed by two back-to-back major hurricanes, leaving the island territory entirely without electricity, landline or cell phone service, internet, and in many areas, roads, for well over a week now.
San Juan’s Mayor Carmen YulÃn Cruz has become the face of the efforts in Puerto Rico. She has been speaking with reporters and giving interviews on cable news networks to try to get the federal government to take action. All week she has been polite but has grown increasingly frustrated with FEMA, which is requiring her to write memos detailing what she and her people need, and requiring all residents of Puerto Rico, she says, to register online for aid. There is no “online” in a decimated Puerto Rico, unless you’re looking at people standing in line for food, water, or medicine.
Those are sitting on the docks in San Juan and other local ports, because the federal government can’t figure out how to get the tens of thousands of shipping containers where they need to go.Â
All week Mayor YulÃn Cruz has been working with FEMA and HHS, praising the people on the ground but lamenting the lack of leadership from Washington. She’s been saying the FEMA employees want to do the right thing but red tape and a lack of direction from D.C. means many are just standing around.
Friday, Mayor YulÃn Cruz had had enough. She said her people are dying and accused the feds of “killing us with the inefficiency.”
“I am asking the President of the United States to make sure somebody is in charge that is up to the task of saving lives,” she pleaded.
Saturday morning, the President of the United States responded, by accusing her of poor leadership and the people of Puerto Rico of being lazy and bad workers.
The federal government’s response has not been “amazing.” It has been not even lackluster, and it’s the fault of the Commander-in-Chief, who spent much of last weekend at his golf course in Bedminster tweeting about NFL players protesting racism, oppression, and police killings of Black people.
According to reports, here at NCRM on Thursday, and Friday evening in The Washington Post, the White House had no plan to intervene in Puerto Rico until news reports on Monday showed images of total devastation.
This is President Trump’s Katrina, and once again, it is our nation’s poorest and most ignored, most of whom are people of color, who are paying the price – sadly, sometimes with their lives.
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