Trump blasts San Juan mayor in defending Fed’s Maria efforts

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump, under rising criticism for the federal response to hurricane-damaged Puerto Rico, swung from defending his administration’s approach to lashing out at the San Juan mayor for her “poor leadership ability.”
The president, in a series of Saturday morning tweets, said Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, “who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump.”
“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,” Trump told his almost 40 million Twitter followers. “They want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort.”
Trump went on to say that there are “10,000 Federal workers now on Island doing a fantastic job” and an “amazing job.”
The president, who’s spending the weekend at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, is scheduled to spend an hour on Saturday in five different telephone briefings on the hurricane recovery efforts.
Trump will speak with FEMA Administrator Brock Long, the current and former governors of Puerto Rico, the commonwealth’s representative in Congress, and the governor of the US Virgin Islands. He isn’t scheduled to speak with Cruz.
Vice President Mike Pence will receive an in-person briefing at FEMA headquarters in Washington.
Trump a day earlier defended his administration’s response to the crisis in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria, which slammed into the territory on September 20, amid rising criticism on the island and in Congress that more resources are needed to help residents cope with life-threatening conditions.
Cruz blasted acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke for telling reporters at the White House that that the relief efforts were “a good-news story in terms of our ability to reach people and the limited number of deaths that have taken place.” In an interview on CNN, Cruz called Duke’s remarks “irresponsible.”
“This is a people-are-dying story,” Cruz said. “This is a story of devastation that continues to worsen because people are not getting food or water.”
Trump, speaking to reporters as he left the White House for New Jersey, said he wasn’t aware of the remarks by Duke or the mayor but that Puerto Rico’s governor has been “unbelievably generous” in his praise for federal efforts.
“I can tell you this: We have done an incredible job considering there’s absolutely nothing to work with,” said Trump, who’s scheduled to visit Puerto Rico on Tuesday. The president may also stop in the US Virgin Islands, which also sustained heavy damage from Maria.

Impassable Roads
More than week after getting slammed by the storm, which hit as Category 4 hurricane, Puerto Ricans continued to endure sweaty, dark nights, with a resolution to the near-total power outage nowhere in sight. Mobile-phone coverage improved gradually, but many residents still had no way of reaching loved ones outside their communities, and rural areas still had impassable roads. The administration has come under criticism from some Republicans as well as Democrats in Congress.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said Thursday that the White House hasn’t grasped the significance of the damage in Puerto Rico compared with recent hurricane damage in his state, from Hurricane Irma, and in Texas from Hurricane Harvey in August.
Thirty-seven Democrats and one independent in the Senate signed a letter urging Trump to take steps including issuing a broader disaster declaration, naming a White House coordinator for rebuilding, and providing for more help to restore electricity. New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, who toured the island on Friday, said on Twitter that “it feels like the hurricane just hit yesterday. This federal response needs to double or triple right now.”