{"id":120508,"date":"2017-10-01T03:21:12","date_gmt":"2017-10-01T07:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=120508"},"modified":"2017-10-01T03:21:12","modified_gmt":"2017-10-01T07:21:12","slug":"trump-lashes-out-at-san-juan-mayor-who-begged-for-more-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/10\/01\/trump-lashes-out-at-san-juan-mayor-who-begged-for-more-help\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump lashes out at San Juan mayor who begged for more help"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"True<\/a>
True to form, President Donald Trump sowed policy confusion with a tweet. (Photo<\/a> by Gage Skidmore\/Flickr<\/a>, CC BY-SA 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BRANCHBURG, N.J. — President Donald Trump on Saturday lashed out at the mayor of San Juan and other officials in storm-ravaged Puerto Rico, contemptuous of their claims of a laggard U.S. response to the natural disaster that has imperiled the island’s future.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help,\u201d Trump said in a series of tweets a day after the capital city’s mayor appealed for help \u201cto save us from dying.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort,\u201d Trump wrote from his New Jersey golf club.<\/p>\n

The tweets were a biting attack on the leader of a community in crisis. After 10 days of desperation, with many still unable to access essentials including food and water, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz accused the Trump administration Friday of \u201ckilling us with the inefficiency\u201d after Hurricane Maria. She implored the president, who is set to visit the U.S. territory on Tuesday, to \u201cmake sure somebody is in charge that is up to the task of saving lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am begging, begging anyone that can hear us, to save us from dying,\u201d Cruz said at a news conference, her voice breaking with rage.<\/p>\n

It was an unusually pointed rebuke from the president in the heat of a disaster — a time when leaders often put aside partisan differences in the name of solidarity. But it was a reminder of Trump’s unrelenting penchant for punching back against critics, whatever the circumstances.<\/p>\n

Trump has said he’s doing everything possible to help the \u201cgreat people of PR!\u201d and has pledged to spare no effort to help the island recover from Maria’s ruinous aftermath. He has also repeatedly applauded his government’s recovery efforts, saying military personnel and first responders have done \u201can amazing job,\u201d despite the significant logistical challenges.<\/p>\n

Thousands more Puerto Ricans have received water and rationed food as an aid bottleneck has begun to ease. But many, especially outside the capital, remain desperate for necessities, including water, power and fuel.<\/p>\n

Trump’s administration has tried in recent days to combat the perception that he failed to quickly grasp the magnitude of Maria’s destruction and has given the U.S. commonwealth less attention than he’d bestowed on\u00a0states like Texas, Louisiana and Florida after they were hit by hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Trump had repeatedly praised the residents of those\u00a0states\u00a0as strong and resilient, saying at one point that Texas could \u201chandle anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Administration officials have held numerous press conferences providing updates on relief efforts and Trump on Saturday spoke by phone from New Jersey with FEMA Administrator Brock Long, Puerto Rico’s governor, Ricardo Rossello, and other several other local officials.<\/p>\n

But after a week of growing criticism, the president’s patience appears to be waning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump,\u201d the president charged, without substantiation.<\/p>\n

FEMA administrator Brock Long also piled on: \u201cThe problem that we have with the mayor unfortunately is that unity of command is ultimately what’s needed to be successful in this response,\u201d he said, requesting that she report to a joint field office.<\/p>\n

Cruz declined to engage in the tit-for-tat, instead calling for a\u00a0united<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0focus on the people who need help. \u201cThe goal is one: saving lives. This is the time to show our ‘true colours.’ We cannot be distracted by anything else,\u201d she tweeted, along with photos of herself meeting with residents and rescue workers, wading hip-deep through a flooded street and comforting an elderly woman.<\/p>\n

After a day of tweets criticizing the news media, Trump seemed to echo the sentiment: \u201cWe must all be\u00a0united<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0in offering assistance to everyone suffering in Puerto Rico and elsewhere in the wake of this terrible disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump’s Saturday tweets are the latest example of his insistence on \u201cpunching back,\u201d even against those with far less power. After a deadly terror attack in London in June, for instance, Trump singled out London Mayor Sadiq Khan, suggesting he wasn’t taking the attacks seriously enough.<\/p>\n

Natural disasters sometimes bring moments of rare bipartisan solidarity. In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, which wreaked havoc along the East Coast in 2012, New Jersey’s Republican governor, Chris Christie, praised Democratic President Barack Obama for his personal attention and compassion at a joint press conference. Still, the fight over relief money became politicized and contentious, with numerous Republicans voting against a delayed relief bill.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, tensions between local and federal officials also ran high. Then-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded with the government to send help in sometimes colorful terms, while Terry Ebbert, the city’s Homeland Security director, called relief efforts a \u201cnational disgrace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kate Hale, Dade County’s emergency management chief during Hurricane Andrew, also blasted FEMA’s response in an angry news conference that was credited with spurring federal government action.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn’t there to criticize; I was there to beg for help,\u201d she said. \u201cI was terrified of what was going to happen to people that otherwise could have been saved. It was never my intention to criticize; it was my intention to cry for help, my intention to beg for help. And it came out like it did, because it just does.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were all at the end of our rope,\u201d she said. \u201cWe didn’t know what else to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

She called Cruz’s remarks a passionate outcry \u201cfrom a woman who loves her community and the people in it, has watched it be destroyed and is now watching people die.\u201d<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Luis Alonso Lugo in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

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