SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Resident Mirian Medina stands on her property about two weeks after Hurricane Maria swept through Puerto Rico. (Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)
'He Is Unhinged': San Juan Mayor Rips Trump for Lies About Puerto Rico Hurricane Relief
"He knows his response was inefficient at best. Shame on you!" Carmen Yulín Cruz said in response to the president's Twitter tirade
Apr 02, 2019
"He can huff and puff all he wants but he cannot escape the death of 3,000 on his watch."
That was San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz's response to President Donald Trump's Monday night tweet-storm, in which he once again inflated the amount of federal aid Puerto Rico has received since Hurricane Maria and attacked Cruz as "crazed and incompetent."
"He is unhinged," Cruz tweeted in response to the president's rant, which came after a GOP emergency aid bill stalled in the Senate, in part due to Democratic opposition over the legislation's inadequate relief to Puerto Rico.
"He knows his response was insufficient at best," the San Juan Mayor continued. "Shame on you!"
Trump's Puerto Rico rant came as over a million U.S. citizens on the island are facing massive food stamp cuts amid congressional inaction.
The president has repeatedly claimed Puerto Rico has received $91 billion in federal disaster relief. According to the Washington Post, this number "appears to be a steep inflation of what's actually been appropriated."
Trump has also reportedly told aides that he "doesn't want another single dollar going to the island."
The $13 billion relief bill that failed in the Senate Monday included $600 million in aid for Puerto Rico's food stamp program, as well as aid to California, North and South Carolina, and other states.
As the Post reported, Senate Democrats argued the GOP legislation is "inadequate to meet the U.S. territory's needs as it attempts to recover from Hurricane Maria."
According to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine last year, as many as 6,000 people may have died in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria.
"Democrats are embracing a House-passed relief bill containing hundreds of millions of dollars more for Puerto Rico than the GOP version, but it, too, failed to advance Monday as Republicans opposed it," the Post reported. "Trump opposes sending any additional aid to Puerto Rico apart from the food stamp money, funding Republicans convinced him to accept as the price for passing the long-pending disaster bill."
In a statement last week, Puerto Rico governor Ricardo Rossello accused Trump of treating residents of the island as second-class citizens.
"People from all over the nation, and the world, have witnessed the inequalities Americans face on the island," Rossello said. "Mr. President: Enough with the insults and demeaning characterizations."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
"He can huff and puff all he wants but he cannot escape the death of 3,000 on his watch."
That was San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz's response to President Donald Trump's Monday night tweet-storm, in which he once again inflated the amount of federal aid Puerto Rico has received since Hurricane Maria and attacked Cruz as "crazed and incompetent."
"He is unhinged," Cruz tweeted in response to the president's rant, which came after a GOP emergency aid bill stalled in the Senate, in part due to Democratic opposition over the legislation's inadequate relief to Puerto Rico.
"He knows his response was insufficient at best," the San Juan Mayor continued. "Shame on you!"
Trump's Puerto Rico rant came as over a million U.S. citizens on the island are facing massive food stamp cuts amid congressional inaction.
The president has repeatedly claimed Puerto Rico has received $91 billion in federal disaster relief. According to the Washington Post, this number "appears to be a steep inflation of what's actually been appropriated."
Trump has also reportedly told aides that he "doesn't want another single dollar going to the island."
The $13 billion relief bill that failed in the Senate Monday included $600 million in aid for Puerto Rico's food stamp program, as well as aid to California, North and South Carolina, and other states.
As the Post reported, Senate Democrats argued the GOP legislation is "inadequate to meet the U.S. territory's needs as it attempts to recover from Hurricane Maria."
According to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine last year, as many as 6,000 people may have died in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria.
"Democrats are embracing a House-passed relief bill containing hundreds of millions of dollars more for Puerto Rico than the GOP version, but it, too, failed to advance Monday as Republicans opposed it," the Post reported. "Trump opposes sending any additional aid to Puerto Rico apart from the food stamp money, funding Republicans convinced him to accept as the price for passing the long-pending disaster bill."
In a statement last week, Puerto Rico governor Ricardo Rossello accused Trump of treating residents of the island as second-class citizens.
"People from all over the nation, and the world, have witnessed the inequalities Americans face on the island," Rossello said. "Mr. President: Enough with the insults and demeaning characterizations."
"He can huff and puff all he wants but he cannot escape the death of 3,000 on his watch."
That was San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz's response to President Donald Trump's Monday night tweet-storm, in which he once again inflated the amount of federal aid Puerto Rico has received since Hurricane Maria and attacked Cruz as "crazed and incompetent."
"He is unhinged," Cruz tweeted in response to the president's rant, which came after a GOP emergency aid bill stalled in the Senate, in part due to Democratic opposition over the legislation's inadequate relief to Puerto Rico.
"He knows his response was insufficient at best," the San Juan Mayor continued. "Shame on you!"
Trump's Puerto Rico rant came as over a million U.S. citizens on the island are facing massive food stamp cuts amid congressional inaction.
The president has repeatedly claimed Puerto Rico has received $91 billion in federal disaster relief. According to the Washington Post, this number "appears to be a steep inflation of what's actually been appropriated."
Trump has also reportedly told aides that he "doesn't want another single dollar going to the island."
The $13 billion relief bill that failed in the Senate Monday included $600 million in aid for Puerto Rico's food stamp program, as well as aid to California, North and South Carolina, and other states.
As the Post reported, Senate Democrats argued the GOP legislation is "inadequate to meet the U.S. territory's needs as it attempts to recover from Hurricane Maria."
According to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine last year, as many as 6,000 people may have died in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria.
"Democrats are embracing a House-passed relief bill containing hundreds of millions of dollars more for Puerto Rico than the GOP version, but it, too, failed to advance Monday as Republicans opposed it," the Post reported. "Trump opposes sending any additional aid to Puerto Rico apart from the food stamp money, funding Republicans convinced him to accept as the price for passing the long-pending disaster bill."
In a statement last week, Puerto Rico governor Ricardo Rossello accused Trump of treating residents of the island as second-class citizens.
"People from all over the nation, and the world, have witnessed the inequalities Americans face on the island," Rossello said. "Mr. President: Enough with the insults and demeaning characterizations."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.