President Donald Trump accused San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz of playing politics in a tweet Saturday after she delivered an emotional speech accusing the administration of “killing” Puerto Rico’s people.
“If anybody out there is listening to us, we are dying,” she said during an interview with CNN on Friday. “And you are killing us with the inefficiency.”
Trump appeared angry by the mayor’s dramatic accusations, especially after they were used by his critics and some members of the media to accuse him of failing Puerto Rico with recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Maria.
“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,” the president wrote on Twitter.
He criticized the mayor’s “poor leadership” in getting local distributors for the aid that had piled up in the port of San Juan.
“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 said. “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.”
Trump also accused CNN and NBC of spreading “fake news” and using the crisis to criticize him.
“Fake News CNN and NBC are going out of their way to disparage our great First Responders as a way to ‘get Trump,'” Trump wrote. “Not fair to FR or effort!”
“The Fake News Networks are working overtime in Puerto Rico doing their best to take the spirit away from our soldiers and first R’s,” he wrote. “Shame!”
President Donald Trump will visit Puerto Rico on Tuesday to personally witness the damage Hurricane Maria has caused the island and its people.
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