What he called them · First term · № 64
Told Puerto Rico it threw the budget 'out of whack,' cited 'a real catastrophe like Katrina,' tossed paper towels
“Now, I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you've thrown our budget a little out of whack because we've spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico, and that's fine. We've saved a lot of lives. If you look at the -- every death is a horror. But if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the tremendous hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and you look at what happened here with, really, a storm that was just totally overpowering -- nobody has ever seen anything like this. What is your death count, as of this moment -- 17?”
- Said
- , Hurricane relief briefing, Luis Muñiz Air National Guard Base, and Calvary Chapel, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico
- Subject
- Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria
- Target
- Other countries
- Place
- Puerto Rico
- Topic
- Other
- Era
- First term
What happened
Gov. Ricardo Rosselló answered that 16 deaths had been certified. Later that day, at a relief distribution center at Calvary Chapel in Guaynabo, Trump tossed rolls of paper towels into a crowd of residents. Puerto Rico's nonvoting member of Congress, Jenniffer González, said 'I would not have done that,' and a Puerto Rico government official took issue with the comparison to Katrina, NBC News reported. San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz called the visit insulting.