As the reports of the first casualties from Hurricane Florence begin flooding the airwaves, President Trump decided to take to Twitter to reignite the controversy over his appalling denial of the death toll from Hurricane Maria’s devastation to the island of Puerto Rico.
Quoting FOX News’ Geraldo Rivera, Trump made it clear that he believes the George Washington University study that determined that 2,975 Puerto Rican people died during or in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria is nothing but a political hit job out to discredit his administration’s recovery efforts, which Trump believes were an “unsung success” but was, in reality, an utter disaster at every level.
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“They say all these people died in the storm in Puerto Rico, yet 70% of the power was out before the storm. So when did people start dying? At what point do you recognize that what they are doing is a political agenda couched in the nice language of journalism?” @GeraldoRivera
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 14, 2018
His tweet echoes the appalling comments he made earlier this week, accusing “Democrats” of artificially inflating the death toll to “make him look bad” in a downright ghoulish defense of his ego and his preposterous delusions of competence.
3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
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…..This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
It’s absolutely despicable to see Geraldo Rivera playing into the President’s hands like this; any cursory examination of the Trump administration’s scandal-ridden and ultimately ineffective response to the disaster makes it clear what really happened. Trump’s words are yet another demonstration of the white supremacy that animates his every political move, and bodes very poorly for those threatened by the onslaught of Hurricane Florence.
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