As Puerto Rico still reels in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, the mayor of San Juan has found herself the latest target of President Trump’s Twitter feed. It began on Friday when Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of Puerto Rico’s capital and largest city, criticized the self-congratulatory tone the administration had taken about recovery efforts.
“Dammit, this is not a good news story,” she told CNN. “This is a ‘people are dying’ story. This is a ‘life or death’ story. This is a ‘there’s a truckload of stuff that cannot be taken to people’ story. This is a story of devastation that continues to worsen.”
That was all it took to trigger a rant from the president, who took to Twitter Saturday to complain that Cruz had “been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump” and accuse her of “poor leadership ability.” He said Cruz and “others” on the island “want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort.” Trump further disparaged Cruz’s claims as “fake news,” insisting that “an amazing job is being done in Puerto Rico.”
After Trump’s tweeting sparked a (predictable) backlash, White House officials defended his remarks on Sunday.
“I don’t think he was attacking the people,” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told NBC’s Chuck Todd. “He understands that the people are going through a very difficult situation.”
Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney went further, calling Cruz’s call for faster aid “unfortunate.”
“I think it’s unfair to say that we haven’t done everything we can, because we have done everything that we can and we will continue to do so,” Mulvaney told CNN. “It’s unfortunate that the Puerto Rico mayor wants to—excuse me—the San Juan mayor wants to sort of go against the grain.”
Tom Price is gone from the Department of Health and Human Services, officially tendering his resignation on Friday. But Price’s goose looked cooked early last week, after numerous stories of his taxpayer-funded trips on private and government planes to questionable destinations piled up. President Trump was publicly voicing his disapproval of Price’s actions all week, but it’s not clear if and when the former Georgia congressman and orthopedic surgeon was urged to shuffle off.
On September 28, the night before his resignation, Price attended a small dinner with officials at the National Institutes of Health. Also in attendance? Ivanka Trump.
Mark It Down—“The president is not going to sign something that he believes is going to increase the deficit.” —Steve Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury, on tax reform, October 1, 2017.
Trump Tweet of the Day
Being nice to Rocket Man hasn’t worked in 25 years, why would it work now? Clinton failed, Bush failed, and Obama failed. I won’t fail.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2017
Looking Ahead—It’s now October 2, which means we’re less than two weeks away from the next deadline for President Trump to certify Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal and a host of other related issues.
The president claims he has already made a decision about certification, which is required by law every 90 days. Having already certified Iran’s compliance a couple times in his presidency, Trump appears to be laying the groundwork for decertifying, which would kick the question of the deal’s future to Congress for debate. The administration’s interagency review of its Iran policy is complete, and it’s possible President Trump will make a public announcement about that policy in conjunction with his certification decision.
Op-Ed of the Day—Jeffrey Davitz had terminal brain cancer and a short, painful time left to live. A California citizen, he chose to euthanize himself legally under a new law there, but a delay in its implementation stalled his plan to end his life. Then, perhaps miraculously, he got better. Read Davitz’s personal story in the Washington Post.
Here’s a headline designed to make heads explode: “Cheney Was Right.” It’s in the new issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, attached to an excellent article by Eric Edelman and Robert Joseph. The authors don’t dwell too much on Dick Cheney’s prescience about the threat from North Korea. Instead, they explain what Cheney saw early on after the end of the Cold War in the Kim regime’s ambitions and tactics. There’s a lesson, Edelman and Joseph note, in how we might address Iran’s similar pursuit of nuclear weapons. Read the whole thing here.
Song of the Day—“10 A.M. Automatic” by the Black Keys.
