Trump is a 10, Death Toll in Puerto Rico Rises to 450

Release the doves, Donald Trump is a 10… with regards to his response to Puerto Rico— he says.

That’s on a scale of 1-10, if you’re wondering. He now compares the magnitude of destruction in Puerto Rico to that of 2005 Hurricane Katrina,..although a few weeks ago he minimized the death toll. A 10 out of 10 for a yuge disaster is good…if you don’t know the truth. 

The Hurricane made landfall on September 20. Trump didn’t visit Puerto Rico until October 3, the Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz described his televised meeting with officials as a “PR, 17-minute meeting”

During his whirlwind tour, of the least impacted areas, Trump asked Ricardo Rosello, Governor of Puerto Rico, how many people had died in the storm. Trump responded to the answer dismissively— 

“Seventeen? Sixteen people certified, 16 people versus in the thousands.”  ~Trump

Trump was comparing the initial 16 deaths to the 1,800 killed in 2005 in New Orleans, saying—

“but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the tremendous – hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and you look at what happened here, with really a storm that was just totally overpowering, nobody’s ever seen anything like this.”

Later the governor corrected the count to 34.

Trump went on to complain about the cost of the storm to the US, telling Puerto Ricans

“you’ve thrown our budget a little out of whack… but that’s fine”.

Incidentally, it has been reported, Trump in 2008, took over licensing and management of a Puerto Rican golf resort, then filed for bankruptcy in 2015, leaving Puerto Ricans with nearly $33 million in outstanding bond payments. This number has been disputed, the argument being the Resort was losing money when Trump took over licensing. The fact remains Trump walked away with $600,000,  and left Puerto Rico with a $33 million tab…but he never accepts responsibility, only accolades.

In any event, Trump tossed some high quality paper towels at a crowd, dedicated the golf trophy, from the “Presidential Cup Gold Tournament” in New Jersey, to the people of Puerto Rico. The trophy for bailing and towels soaking up flood waters, really a practical gift. 

No help coming from Trump, and he’s ready to pull FEMA, because… he and his staff want to use that money to charter jets… for official business. “Can’t keep FEMA in P.R. forever.” Natural disasters are not what tax payer money is for, t’s for golfing, stop being so greedy P.R.

• Five days ago the death toll was at 48.
• As of Thursday—a month after the hurricane, only 21.6% of the island had power.
• The death toll in Puerto Rico is currently estimated at 450. 

“How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?” ~Bob Dylan

What is the magic death toll number in Trump’s giant head that will make him act? 

Back to that perfect 10 Trump has given himself. He wants to transfer the source of the praise on someone else, and attempted to manipulate the Governor of Puerto Rico into filling the role—

“Governor, I just want to maybe ask you a question, because for the spirit of these people that have worked so hard and so long, like Tom [Bossert] and like Brock [Long] and like so many others. Did the United States, did our government — when we came in, did we do a great job? Military? First-responders? FEMA? Did we do a great job? ~Trump

The Governor’s response— 

“You responded immediately, sir, and — and you did so. You know, Tom and Brock, they have been on the phone with me essentially every — every day since the disaster. We recognize that there are some logistical limitations that we have in Puerto Rico. We didn’t have the ports open for a couple of days. We didn’t have the airports working [at] full capacity until about a day or two ago. So that was always a very limiting step, but if you consider that we’ve gotten — even with those obstacles, we’ve gotten about 15,000 DOD personnel in Puerto Rico, about 2,000 FEMA personnel, HHS and others. The response is there. Do we need to do a lot more? Of course we do. And I think everybody over here recognizes there’s a lot of work to be done in Puerto Rico. But with your leadership, sir, and with everybody here, we’re committed to achieving that in the long — in the long run.”

So, maybe not a 10… on a scale of 1-10.

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