Donald Trump Says 3000 People Did Not Die in Puerto Rico After Hurricanes

As people along the eastern seaboard gear up for Hurricane Florence, Donald Trump has faced fresh criticism for his handling of the hurricane that battered Puerto Rico last year.

Earlier this week, Trump said that his administration was “incredibly successful” in its response to Hurricane Maria. Trump went so far as to call it an “unsung success” of his administration.


Trump Disputes the Death Tool, Saying that Three Thousand People ‘Did Not Die’ as a Result of Maria

The latest figures from Puerto Rico’s governor, Ricardo Rossello, say that 2,795 people died as a result of Hurricane Maria. That would make Maria the deadliest hurricane in US history. The figure was announced at the end of August; previously, Rossello had put the death toll at 64.

Nearly a year after Hurricane Maria, some in Puerto Rico’s remote, rural areas are still without power. The storm initially wiped out power supplies for everyone on the island. Maria caused an estimated 94 billion dollars in damage to homes, buildings, and other infrastructure.


Trump Was Widely Criticized for Footage that Showed him ‘Tossing a Few Paper Towels’ to Victims of the Hurricane in Puerto Rico

Trump took a lot of criticism for what people saw as his lack of concern for the victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. His recent comments, in which he seems to be bragging about how well he handled that hurricane, have people grumbling about the paper towels all over again.

New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, took to Twitter to jab at the president’s response to Puerto Rico’s catastrophe. Cuomo also suggested that Trump cares much less about Puerto Ricans than he does about mainland Americans living in, say, Florida. He wrote,

“He tossed a few rolls of paper towels and then abandoned Puerto Rico in a way he never would have done to Florida and Texas. President Trump should do something useful and push his fellow Republicans to deliver the aid package Puerto Rico still desperately needs to rebuild.”

Cuomo wasn’t the only one who took aim at Trump for the “paper towel” issue. Here are just a few tweets from other social media users angered by the president’s statements about Puerto Rico:

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