President Donald Trump landed in Puerto Rico on Tuesday, eager to lend a hand to the relief effort going underway on the Caribbean island and American territory, which is home to 3.4 million U.S. citizens.
Trump spoke to mayors and local officials, and attended a briefing on relief efforts in the Muñiz Air National Guard Base.
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But it didn’t seem to ever be enough for Trump critics on the island and in the media, who took every opportunity to blame the president for everything, even the “tardy” arrival of a U.S. Navy hospital ship.
At the Air National Guard base, Trump met and politely shook hands with San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, his main critic on the island.
For Trump, despite the criticisms, the theme of the day was cordiality, as millions of Puerto Ricans still lack power or water. The island’s road ahead looks grim and difficult. The non-coastal areas still have debris on roads, and the electrical grid needs repair after years and years of neglect.
More than 10,000 federal workers are engaged in relief efforts, while the U.S. military is also working to repair infrastructure.
But making matters worse is the debt situation Puerto Rico faces. The island’s government owes more than $73 billion. It declared bankruptcy in May, making this the largest public sector bankruptcy in U.S. history.
Trump has referenced the debt’s being a problem in tweets since Hurricane Maria hit the island on September 20, and his critics think it is an unfair swipe. And on Tuesday, Trump took another swipe at the costs U.S. taxpayers will incur.
“I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you are throwing our budget out of whack,” said Trump, speaking at the briefing.
Not surprisingly, much of the coverage surrounding the trip was negative or snarky in tone — payback for Trump’s perceived insensitivity to Puerto Rico, as well as his budget joke.
CNN’s daily Trump critic and cynic, Chris Cillizza, wrote a story on how terrible Trump’s trip was — his usual daily column on Trump’s job.
“Trump’s Puerto Rico event was way worse than his tweets,” read CNN’s headline.
“Trump delivered a navel-gazing, self-championing, victimhood-seeking speech that reeked of tone-deafness and out-of-touch-ism,” Cillizza wrote, displaying his usual venom. “Even for this President, who has redefined presidential — and not for the better — this is a truly remarkable low.”
The media were also offended when Trump said the number of Hurricane Maria-related fatalities was low. The governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló, told Trump at a public meeting of top island officials that 16 people had died because of Maria.
“Every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina and you look at the tremendous — hundreds and hundreds of people that died — and you look at what happened here with, really, a storm that was just totally overpowering,” said Trump. “No one has ever seen anything like this.”
The media highlighted the remarks, with CNN even giving the quote its own story, ostensibly because the remark seemed insensitive. And the mayor of San Juan asserted to CNN that 26 people have died, and more will die if power is not restored.
But the reference to Katrina was small potatoes compared to another issue Trump touched upon: the money the federal government will have to spend to bail out Puerto Rico. Given the island’s poor infrastructure, the task will be much harder than it was in the Southeast even after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The electrical grid in particular is what Trump calls a “mess.” The island’s officials estimate it could be up to six months before power is fully restored in all corners.
“The island’s faltering electrical grid, now crippled by the twin blows of Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Irma, already was struggling to keep the lights on after a history of poor maintenance, poorly trained staff, allegations of corruption and crushing debt,” the Los Angeles Times noted in a September 26 report. “As recently as 2016, the island suffered a three-day, island-wide blackout as a result of a fire. A private energy consultant noted then that the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority ‘appears to be running on fumes, and … desperately requires an infusion of capital — monetary, human and intellectual — to restore a functional utility.'”
Cruz was angry Trump mentioned the debt and the infrastructure challenges.
“I would hope that the president of the United States stops spouting out comments that really hurt the people of Puerto Rico because rather than commander-in-chief, he sort of becomes miscommunicator-in-chief,” said Cruz, speaking to CNN.
Also on Tuesday, the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort arrived in San Juan. The Navy ship has more than 1,000 beds and 11 operating rooms, with 500 medical personnel. More than 1,000 personnel made the trip to San Juan.
But even as USNS Comfort arrived in San Juan, critics complained.
“It just got here today,” said Jonathan Karl of ABC News. “Two weeks after the hurricane hit the island.”
The ship has to be activated before it begins to load up with personnel, according to its website. It also took five days to steam from Norfolk, Virginia.
Not everyone in Puerto Rico is a Trump critic. On Monday, Guaynabo Mayor Angel Pérez Otero told LifeZette that help has been arriving.
“We are receiving help from the president and all the federal agencies,” said Pérez Otero on Monday. “We are receiving food and water.”
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