President Donald Trump does not understand relief efforts in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria are not about "him and his ego," San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz said Wednesday, after the president attacked her as "incompetent" through a tweet touting his readiness for Hurricane Florence.
"This is about the inability of his administration he directed to ensure the appropriate help got to Puerto Rico in time," Cruz told MSNBC. "This is about his administration telling the Puerto Rico Power Authority that we should not buy generators or light poles from countries outside of the U.S., even countries that the U.S. buys these materials from."
Instead, she continued, Trump is "all about political posturing. It's about how good he is going to look . . . he has not tweeted once, once to say he is sorry about the death of Puerto Rico, but has time to tweet on me."
Cruz said she hopes FEMA and the president have both learned their lessons and Trump "goes to these states not to throw paper towels, not to point fingers at who is in a humanitarian crisis doing everything they can do, but do his job as commander in chief and ensure help gets there."
She also criticized the Trump administration about reports $10 million was moved away from FEMA for use by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying the move took money from a life-saving organization and gave it to an agency that separates families.
Cruz acknowledged FEMA Administrator Brock Long's comments about Puerto Rico's crumbling infrastructure, but insisted that had nothing to do with storm relief after Maria.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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