Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney on Wednesday talked down the idea that the federal government might bail out Puerto Rico out of its $74 billion debt crisis, after President Trump seemed to open the door to that idea on Tuesday.
“I wouldn’t take it word-for-word with that,” Mulvaney said on CNN Wednesday morning of Trump’s comments.
Trump indicated Tuesday that banks might need to be prepared to “say goodbye” to Puerto Rico’s debts, but wasn’t specific.
“They owe a lot of money to your friends on Wall Street, and we’re going to have to wipe that out,” he said in an interview with Fox News. “You’re going to say goodbye to that, I don’t know if it’s Goldman Sachs, but whoever it is, you can wave goodbye to that.”
Mulvaney said he took Trump’s comments to mean that Puerto Rico will have to address its huge debt problem, and noted that the U.S. has created a commission to manage the island’s finances.
“The president knows that in order for Puerto Rico long-term to fix itself, it’s going to have to deal with that debt situation,” Mulvaney said.
“The territory was very poorly run for a very long time,” he added. “I think what you saw the president talking about was his acknowledgment that Puerto Rico’s going to have to figure out a way to solve that debt problem in order to fix itself going forward.”
“We can help it, and we will help it,” Mulvaney said.
