Trump Warns Storm-Ravaged Puerto Rico That Aid Won’t Last ‘Forever’ (original) (raw)
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Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, who is leading the United States military effort in Puerto Rico, unloading critical supplies on Thursday in Cidra.Credit...Dennis M. Rivera Pichardo for The New York Times
- Oct. 12, 2017
WASHINGTON — The message was as stark as it was startling. Three weeks after a killer hurricane ravaged Puerto Rico, President Trump indicated on Thursday that he was losing patience. At least some of the blame for the continuing crisis is yours, he told the island territory, and the federal government will not stay “forever.”
While most residents endured another day without power and many without water or other basic services, Mr. Trump upbraided Puerto Rico’s leadership for mismanagement that predated the storm and said troops and emergency workers would eventually leave. Caught off guard, his advisers scrambled to reassure Puerto Rico that Washington was not abandoning it.
The president’s warning came on the same day the House approved $36.5 billion in aid for natural disasters, including in Puerto Rico, with the tab rising weekly. Federal agencies expect to spend years helping the island rebuild. But Mr. Trump, who has been criticized for a slow and not always empathetic response to the storms that devastated Puerto Rico, sought to refocus responsibility to where he believes it belongs.
“ ‘Puerto Rico survived the Hurricanes, now a financial crisis looms largely of their own making.’ says Sharyl Attkisson,” he wrote on Twitter, citing the host of a public affairs show on Sinclair Broadcast Group television stations. “A total lack of accountability say the Governor. Electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricanes. Congress to decide how much to spend. We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!”
The tweets set off alarms in San Juan, the Puerto Rican capital, where Ricardo A. Rosselló, the governor, anxiously called John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, to seek an explanation. Mr. Kelly reassured him that no federal resources were being withdrawn anytime soon and then made an unannounced visit to the White House briefing room to repeat the message for the news media.
“Our country will stand with those American citizens in Puerto Rico until the job is done,” Mr. Kelly said. The president, he asserted, merely meant that eventually the federal government would complete its mission. “The whole point is to start to work yourself out of a job,” he said.
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