More than 120 lawmakers from both the House and the Senate are calling on President Trump to apologize after the president cast doubt on the number of people killed as a result of Hurricane Irma and Maria last September.
“We write to denounce your recent statements about the fatalities in Puerto Rico from Hurricanes Irma and Maria and their aftermath,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter dated Tuesday. “These comments were grossly inaccurate, callous, embarrassing and beneath the dignity of the Office of the President of the United States. We call on you to immediately apologize and set the record straight by publicly acknowledging the official death toll.”
[Related: Twitter rips Trump for claiming Puerto Rico death toll was inflated, devised by Democrats]
I’ve joined my colleagues in condemning these remarks and calling for President Trump to apologize. Puerto Ricans need improved recovery efforts, not insulting tweets from the president. https://t.co/Ho3SmaVIYV
— Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) September 19, 2018
Trump disputed last week that 3,000 people were killed in Hurricanes Irma and Maria, and said that it was an effort from Democrats to make him “look as bad as possible.” The tweet came after Trump faced widespread backlash for praising his administration’s response to the catastrophes, claiming it was an “incredible, unsung success.”
“3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths,” Trump tweeted last week. “As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000……..This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!”
Puerto Rico’s government updated the death toll from Hurricane Maria late last month, and now believe that 2,975 people died because of the hurricane and its aftermath.
The lawmakers, primarily Democrats, said Trump was seeking to “distort the truth” when he claimed that 3,000 people were not killed in the hurricanes, and as a result, “gravely insulted the mourning families of the thousands of American citizens who died from Maria and the storm’s aftermath.”
They also characterized Trump’s comments that the death toll was intended to make him look bad as “highly offensive.” They added, “The lost lives of U.S. citizens are no political stunt and this is not a partisan matter.”
“We call on you to apologize for your unconscionable and unfounded claims, which belittle the scale of the tragedy suffered by the people of Puerto Rico and dishonestly cast partisan blame for their deaths,” the lawmakers concluded.
The letter was signed by lawmakers including Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., along with 116 House members.
