The details of Trump’s remarks at FEMA’s hurricane prep meeting just leaked, and they’re infuriating

Yesterday, the President sat down with the Federal Emergency Management Agency in order to discuss preparations for this year’s hurricane season, which, thanks to to the climate change that the president has decided is just a Chinese hoax, is almost certain to produce deadlier storms than the year before.

Considering the horrifying devastation left in the paths of Hurricanes Harvey and Maria, doubling down on our hurricane preparedness is more vital than ever. But once again, President Trump made it very clear that he is entirely unconcerned with the well-being and safety of the American people, preferring to use the time to congratulate himself and take credit for the hard work of others before launching into a series of bizarre non sequiturs, like his dislike for the use of magnets on aircraft carriers:

“Part of it is, they want to have all new. Instead of having the system that throws the aircraft off the [ship], which was always steam,. They now have magnets. They’re using magnets instead of steam. . . . They spent hundreds of millions of dollars, I’m hearing not great things about it. It’s frankly ridiculous.”

The Washington Post reports that the President’s addled brain jumped around from “his prowess in negotiating airplane deals, his popularity, the effectiveness of his political endorsements, the Republican Party’s fortunes, the vagaries of Defense Department purchasing guidelines, his dislike of magnetized launch equipment on aircraft carriers, his unending love of coal and his breezy optimism about his planned Singapore summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.”

He did not once mention the 4,500 Americans who died thanks to his administration’s slow response and unforgivable neglect in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, instead interrupting a Department of Defense official within ten seconds in order to brag about how he cut costs on Air Force One: “We saved $1.6 billion on Air Force One,. Can you believe it? I got involved in the negotiations. The press refuses to report that, but that’s okay. . . . People were really surprised.”

It will come as no surprise that the $1.6 billion figure has no basis in fact.

It offers a small glimpse into the president’s rapidly decaying brain – that simply bringing up the Department of Defense sends Trump’s tremendous brain immediately searching for the first thing he can praise himself for and simply blurting it out, obsessive in his need to remind others of his “accomplishments” and to assuage his ego at every opportunity, too fixated on his own personal affirmation to pay any attention to the deadly serious discussions going on around him.

The news that the real death toll from Hurricane Maria makes it the deadliest natural disaster in modern American history barely got more than a half-hour of coverage on major TV networks as the nation obsessed over Roseanne Barr’s racism instead. But the president couldn’t even be bothered to bring up the victims even once.

The island of Puerto Rico has only barely begun recovering from the last hurricane, and the next one is right around the corner. It’s deeply disturbing to know that the President can’t even be bothered to show even the most basic concern for the thousands of lives at risk – a sure sign that he will sit by and let Puerto Rico drown a second time.

Colin Taylor

Managing Editor

Colin Taylor is the managing editor of the Washington Press. He graduated from Bennington College with a Bachelor's degree in history and political science. He now focuses on advancing the cause of social justice, equality, and universal health care in America.