Lady Gaga has common ally in Rep. Al Green, who also accused President Trump of “playing politics” with hurricane-hit Puerto Rico because the Electoral College math doesn’t add up.
The Democratic congressman from Texas said Saturday that his home state of Texas and Florida — both of which were also recently hit by hurricanes — got more federal government attention because of their value in a general election.
“The Puerto Rican people are hardworking loyal Americans. They have done everything right in terms of responding to this storm. And the president knows that only the federal government can help them and extricate them from their perilous situation,” Green, who has repeatedly called for Trump’s impeachment, said on CNN. “We should have sent in more helicopters. The president knows this. In Texas, when we had a shortage, we sent in more helicopters and we sent in more National Guardsmen. We made sure we took care of Texas.”
“But then Texas has 38 electoral votes Florida had 29 electoral votes. Puerto Rico had zero. The president is playing politics of the lives of the Puerto Rican people,” he added.
Rep. Al Green: “The president is playing politics with the lives of Puerto Ricans.” (via CNN) https://t.co/EaPOswzWRJ— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 30, 2017
Also on Saturday, Gaga, a pop star with 71.4 million followers on Twitter, accused Trump of not giving Puerto Rico an equal amount of attention as he did to Florida and Texas.
“Oh I see @realDonaldTrump you’re not helping PR because of the electoral votes u need to be re-elected #Florida=29 #Texas=38 #PuertoRico=0,” Gaga tweeted.
Oh I see @realDonaldTrump you’re not helping PR because of the electoral votes u need to be re-elected #Florida=29 #Texas=38 #PuertoRico=0
— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) September 30, 2017
Trump has pushed back on his critics’ assertions that he wasn’t quick to respond to the the crisis that came out of Hurricane Maria hitting Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, but he did upset some when he said that relief efforts could be slow because Puerto Rico is “an island, surrounded by water — big water, ocean water.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency says its National Response Coordination Center was “fully activated” days before Maria made landfall over Puerto Rico, and thousands of troops and National Guardsmen were on the ground before the storm hit the island last week.
However, Puerto Ricans are still dealing with difficult conditions as food, water, and fuel have been hard to come by as distribution efforts can’t keep up with demand, and the federal response to Maria is being compared to government’s handling of the post-hurricane situations in Texas and Florida. Trump visited both of those states, along with Louisiana, and in a similar fashion, he will head to Puerto Rico on Tuesday.
