On Monday, senators bickered over disaster aid packages. By the end of the day, neither a bill passed by the House nor a separate measure supported by Republicans had the 60 votes needed to advance to a full floor vote. But as lawmakers tried to hammer out their differences — particularly how much aid to allocate to Puerto Rico and the inclusion of money for the Midwest after recent flooding — President Trump jumped into the fray on Twitter.
On Monday night, Trump lashed out at Democrats in the Senate and then turned on Puerto Rican politicians. He picked up the same line of attack Tuesday morning with a new series of tweets:
Puerto Rico got 91 Billion Dollars for the hurricane, more money than has ever been gotten for a hurricane before, & all their local politicians do is complain & ask for more money. The pols are grossly incompetent, spend the money foolishly or corruptly, & only take from USA….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 2, 2019
….The best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico is President Donald J. Trump. So many wonderful people, but with such bad Island leadership and with so much money wasted. Cannot continue to hurt our Farmers and States with these massive payments, and so little appreciation!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 2, 2019
[Read: Trump claims he’s ‘the best thing’ to happen to Puerto Rico]
Instead of making good on even paying lip service to the idea of making America great again, which would seem to include rebuilding an American territory after devastating storms, Trump instead implied that Puerto Rico wasn’t even part of the U.S. arguing that the island was taking money from the United States.
Puerto Rico, of course, is part of the U.S., it is home to passport carrying U.S. citizens.
More bizarrely still, Trump said that the U.S. territory has already received $91 billion in federal aid. It hasn’t, as the Washington Post demonstrates, Puerto Rico has only received about $11.2 billion.
That $91 billion seems instead to be derived from a high-end estimate of the total, long-term amount that the federal government liabilities under current law. That majority of that figure then hasn’t even been allocated, let alone obligated to specific projects or spent.
Needless to say, these statements from the tweeter-in-chief aren’t going to help senators compromise and certainly aren’t going to speed up the already delayed allocation of funds to much needed disaster relief.
Puerto Rico will continue to be the primary sticking point, as Democrats have already indicated that they are willing to allocate money for the Midwest in the aftermath of recent storms. And so Republican lawmakers would do well to look to the broader message of Trump’s stated aims rather than specific, fact-free comments on Twitter.
And when it comes to Puerto Rico, making the U.S. territory great again means allocating more disaster relief.
