The Real Story Behind Trump’s Clash With Puerto Rican Mayor

Will it ever stop?

First, the left-wing establishment media tried to create a narrative implying that the Trump administration was refusing to provide adequate assistance to victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Now, the Mayor of San Juan has decided to get in on the action.

On Saturday, Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz lashed out at the Trump administration over their supposed incompetence in providing aid to the devastated country. In true Trumpian fashion, the president responded as only he could — with a Twitter storm.

Naturally, the media painted Cruz as an innocent victim of the Big Bad Trump’s bullying. However, the truth isn’t what the left would like you to believe.

Mayor Cruz Conjures Images Of Genocide To Criticize Trump

On Friday, Mayor Cruz held a press conference where she accused the federal government of killing Puerto Ricans “with the inefficiency and the bureaucracy.” She claimed that the U.S. was not sending her city enough supplies,

“This is what we got last night. Four pallets of water, three pallets of meals, and 12 pallets of infant food — which, I gave them to the people of Comerio, where people are drinking off a creek.”

She also said that she is “done being polite,” and that the Federal Emergency Management Agency “has collapsed.” But she didn’t stop there.

She also used the G-word, “If we don’t get the food and the water into people’s hands, we are going to see something close to a genocide,” she claimed. “I am asking the president of the United States to make sure somebody is in charge that is up to the task of saving lives.”

Finally, she ended her plea by saying:

“So, Mr. Trump, I am begging you to take charge and save lives. After all, that is one of the founding principles of the United States of…America. If not, the world will see how we are treated not as second-class citizens but as animals that can be disposed of. Enough is enough.”

Trump’s Response

On Saturday, the president took to Twitter to respond to Cruz’s statements. In the first of many tweets, he wrote:

“The 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.”

After accusing the mayor of being influenced by the Democrats (and referring to himself in the third person), he went on to blast the mayor for failing to get people to help in the recovery effort:

…Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help. They….

…want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort. 10,000 Federal workers now on Island doing a fantastic job.

To drive his point home, President Trump tweeted images of the military and FEMA officials working to restore power to Puerto Rico.

What’s Really Going On?

Sounds pretty bad, right? Trump’s comments may have been overly harsh, but Mayor Cruz’s statement that the administration’s handling of the disaster was causing a genocide is far more egregious.

On Sunday, it became apparent that a significant amount of resources were stuck in shipping containers in the city’s ports. The issue isn’t that FEMA wasn’t sending aid, the issue is that Puerto Rico has not been able to transport the items to the rest of the country.

MSNBC even admitted that the aid sent by FEMA and other entities aren’t being distributed because Puerto Rico’s leadership is having trouble getting their workers to transport the supplies to their intended destinations. Currently, there are 9,500 containers carrying food, water, and medicine in the port.

The reason the supplies are not moving is because the island is dealing with a trucking shortage. According to KTLA, only 20% of the country’s truck drivers have returned to work following the disasters. Additionally, Puerto Rico is experiencing fuel shortages. Lastly, the hurricane disabled most of the island’s cell towers, which makes it harder for workers to coordinate the logistics.

Fortunately, the U.S. is also helping in other ways. The Army Corps of Engineers is rebuilding roads and making it easier to get lifesaving supplies to the people who need them. They are also transporting 124,000 gallons of diesel fuel to Puerto Rico. FEMA has also managed to restore power to thousands of people in major cities.

There is still more work to be done, but contrary to Cruz’s delusions of genocide, the United States is fully engaged in the effort to assist Puerto Rico. Speaking of the mayor, in a Sunday appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” she talked to George Stephanopoulos, who brought up the fact that the director of FEMA indicated that Cruz was “not really plugged in” to FEMA’s relief efforts.

Stephanopoulos was referring to FEMA administrator Brock Long’s appearance on CNN when he said Cruz has not connected with the command center that was established to coordinate efforts to get aid to the victims. When Stephanopoulos asked her if she had visited a FEMA joint field office to coordinate relief efforts, Cruz admitted that she had not, but in one case, she sent a member of her administration. Obviously, she was not personally involved with collaborating with FEMA.

Cruz has also received criticism from one of her fellow mayors for her failure to work with FEMA. Angel Perez, Mayor of Guaynabo, says his experience with the government has been much different. When discussing Mayor Cruz’s comments, he told The Daily Caller:

“She is not participating in any meetings and we had a couple already with the governors and with representation of FEMA and of HUD, of these whole federal agencies that have given us help and she’s not participating in those meetings and some mayors from her political party have been participating, so I don’t know why she is saying that. My experience is very different.”

Mayor Cruz criticized the Trump administration and the agencies charged with providing aid — even going so far as to say that FEMA “has collapsed,” but the truth is that she seems more interested in slamming those who wish to help than she is in working with them.

Was the president’s response to Cruz’s comments a bit harsh? Of course — this is Donald Trump we’re talking about after all. But Mayor Cruz’s criticisms were unfair, dishonest, and hypocritical. This story is yet another example of the left’s grasping at straws to convince the public that the Trump administration is unable to handle a crisis. Unfortunately for them, the president keeps proving them wrong.