Desperately Seeking A Trump Failure In Puerto Rico
Desperately Seeking A Trump Failure In Puerto Rico
5:21 PM ET
Federal Aid: "You never let a serious crisis go to waste" was former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel's motto. It's one that President Trump's critics have fully embraced as they try to use Puerto Rico's struggles to recover from Hurricane Maria as a political weapon.
Based on much of the coverage of the Trump administration's response to Maria, you'd think it was Trump's fault that Puerto Rico is an island 1,000 miles off the coast of Miami where supplies can only arrive by air or sea, which was impossible immediately after the storm because the ports and airports were knocked out of commission. Or that Trump is to blame for the massive scale of the destruction that has made the logistics complicated and the recovery slow. Or that he's at fault for the fact that, when massive amounts of supplies did arrive, few Puerto Rican truck drivers showed up to deliver them to their destinations.
You'd also likely not know from the past week's coverage that the reaction from Puerto Rican officials to the federal government's response has been largely positive.
Gov. Ricardo Rossello, for example, said that "the administration has answered and has complied with our petitions in an expedited manner." Federal agencies have been detailing their response efforts. (See the nearby FEMA chart.)
Also largely unremarked is the fact that, despite the scale of devastation and the inherent difficulties in bringing relief, Puerto Rico is making significant progress in restoring services.
A dashboard operated by the Puerto Rican government notes that as of Monday, 69% of gas stations and 65% of supermarkets were open for business, 63% of the island's ports were fully operational, 40% of telecommunication services had been restored, 27% of ATMs were working again, and 26% of commercial flight service was operational. On Monday, Rossello said that almost half the residents have running water and 10 hospitals have power.
Instead, what we've mostly heard is a constant drumbeat in the press and from Democrats about how Trump's response has been "slow footed, disorganized and not adequate," how this is just like President Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina, how it's further evidence that Trump is a racist.
There was, for example, an immediate and intense focus on complaints by San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz about Trump's response at a news conference set, oddly enough, in front of pallets and pallets full of supplies.
It turns out, however, that Cruz hasn't exactly been on top of the situation herself. FEMA administrator Brock Long points out that she's been a no-show at the FEMA command center coordinating relief efforts, and wasn't "plugged into what's going on."
And Guaynabo Mayor Angel Perez Otero countered Cruz, saying that "We are receiving a lot of help from FEMA and the Red Cross ... there is lots of help coming to us."
Could the Trump administration have done more to prepare in advance for Maria? Possibly. Is the recovery slow? Yes.
But what, precisely, is the administration not doing that it should be doing? His critics are silent on that. The only specific thing they can point to are Trump's tweets. Namely, that he hasn't been tweeting enough, or tweeting the "wrong" things. But what does this have to do with what administration officials are actually doing? Nothing.
The problem is that Trump's critics — both Democrats and the press — so reflexively call everything Trump does a tragic failure that there's no way to know, without doing extensive independent research, whether their complaints about the Puerto Rico response efforts have any merit.
Until then, we'll take the Puerto Rican governor's word about the quality of Trump's actions over the words of domestic partisan hacks hoping to score political points during a humanitarian crisis. http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/trumps-puerto-rico-response-gets-attacked-by-partisan-hacks/
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Three major hurricanes hit the U.S. in a month, they could find absolutely nothing to bitch about the response to the first two...
They are scraping, they are scraping...
It's what the so-called resistance does...
Seems that the only failure is the anti-Trump mayor in San Juan.
"you'd think it was Trump's fault that Puerto Rico is an island 1,000 miles off the coast of Miami"
As a former Fl resident: Sorry I got that far and couldn't stop laughing....
Thanks
It is true Puerto Rico is 1000 miles from Miami.
LOL... I stand corrected, I was thinking Cuba..... Duu
LOL @ myself....
You have the balls to post that doctored shit here?
Ok...I'm looking for this dashboard that shows all this and so far I have not found it. Not to mention the last statement the PR Governor gave which was on Sunday stated that 95% of customers of the electrical grid is still without power and only 10% of the islands cell phone towers are working
Ok just found the dashboard.......but the very telling thing about what is NOT being reported on this article is that 95% of people in PR are without power, and even though 40% of phones are up, only 11% of cell phone towers are operable which means people in the rural areas are without communications, island ports may be operational, but how does that help the people who are without power and trapped in flood areas
Yeah....I guess I need to tell my friend that her parents are lying when they told her that their house literally flew away!