"But at the same time, it doesn't take me long to put out a wrong and maybe we'll get it right. "We are totally focused on that," Trump said Tuesday of the growing crisis on the U.S. Trump was intent on showing he'd gotten the message - but still wasn't ready to set aside the NFL issue entirely. The president has tweeted about the NFL more than two dozen times since Friday.īy Monday, Democrats, Republicans and Rossello were emphasizing that Puerto Ricans are Americans, too. 20 and Monday, including his fight with the NFL over football players protesting during the National Anthem. His approval ratings in the most recent Gallup tracking poll ticked up, to 39 percent, after his trips to survey damage from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in Texas and Florida.īut Trump's fixation on Puerto Rico on Tuesday stood in sharp contrast to his focus on other matters between Maria's landfall Sept. #HurricaneMaria," Rubio tweeted Tuesday.įor any president, there's much to be gained politically from ably handling the government's response to natural disasters, and Trump is no exception. "We have a fundamental obligation to Puerto Rico to respond to a hurricane there the way we would anywhere in the country. Marco Rubio concurred, tweeting about San Juan, "MUST get power crews in ASAP." Ben Sasse of Nebraska, a frequent Trump critic. "The crisis for these Americans needs more attention - and more urgency from the executive branch," tweeted Republican Sen. Bush following the slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. She warned that if he didn't start taking it seriously, "this is going to be your Katrina," referring to criticism of President George W. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., said she had been concerned that Trump's continued tweets about NFL players showed he didn't grasp the severity of the crisis. His public focus in recent days on other matters, particularly his extended commentary on NFL players who kneel during the National Anthem, generated criticism that he was giving Puerto Rico short shrift after devoting considerable public attention to storm damage in Texas and Florida. Trump, who had proposed visiting Puerto Rico earlier this month, said that next Tuesday was the earliest he could get there without disrupting recovery efforts. Officials said electrical power may not be fully restored for more than a month.
Flights off the island are infrequent, communications are spotty and roads are clogged with debris. Six days after Maria struck the island, conditions in Puerto Rico remain dire, with 3.4 million people virtually without electrical power and short of food and water. Throughout, Trump stressed that Puerto Rico's governor had praised the federal response, characterizing Ricardo Rossello as "so thankful of the job we're doing."
FEMA Administrator Brock Long delivered specifics: 16 Navy and Coast Guard ships in the waters around Puerto Rico and 10 more on the way. He called a meeting of agency heads tasked with helping Puerto Rico recover, and sent top officials out to the White House driveway to talk to reporters. He raised the subject at a Rose Garden news conference with the prime minister of Spain.Īnd he attended a hurricane briefing. He talked about Puerto Rico during a meeting on tax cuts. He also sent out a tweet about Puerto Rico's needs. Trump announced that he would visit Puerto Rico and the U.S. commonwealth the top-priority treatment he had bestowed on Texas, Louisiana and Florida after previous storms. WASHINGTON (AP) - Suddenly, just about all President Donald Trump can talk about is Puerto Rico.Īfter not mentioning the hurricane-devastated island for days, Trump on Tuesday pushed back aggressively and repeatedly against criticism that he had failed to quickly grasp the magnitude of Maria's destruction or give the U.S.
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