Twitter users lashed out at President Trump on Thursday after he claimed 3,000 people did not die as a result of the hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico last year, contrary to the latest estimate putting the death toll at just under 3,000.
In a pair of tweets, the president asserted, without evidence, that the 3,000 figure was a fake and called the statistic a politically motivated creation of the Democrats to make him “look as bad as possible.”
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. 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…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
…..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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello formally raised the death toll late last month from Hurricane Maria to 2,975 from 64 after an independent study was conducted by George Washington University researchers — a point of which many Twitter users, including journalists, politicians, comedians, and other public figures quickly, and sometimes indignantly, reminded the president.
One can raise questions about the estimates but the most conservative counts found about 1000 deaths in September and October https://t.co/kcnvaelfsS
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) September 13, 2018
Just because he says it, doesn’t mean that 2,975 U.S. citizens didn’t die in Puerto Rico after hurricane María. Go to the island, as we did, and talk to the families. They’ll tell you the truth. This is the best example of an official lie coming from @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/24sQHp6CaN
— JORGE RAMOS (@jorgeramosnews) September 13, 2018
Fake news, fake polls, fake books, now fake deaths. Hopefully someone will brief Trump on what the Puerto Rico mortality studies really showed. https://t.co/sTuPVr1p0R
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 13, 2018
Donald Trump won the hurricane, if you deduct the 3000 people who died illegally. https://t.co/NFRZ4fl4Ws
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) September 13, 2018
Somewhere, White House aides are screaming into pillows https://t.co/5EmocBdnoO
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 13, 2018
Remember what Trump once told a veterans groups: “what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what’s happening.” Trump is not only refusing to admit failure in PR. He wants you to accept his version of the truth (alternative facts)… which isn’t the truth. https://t.co/MyfXpW63EZ
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) September 13, 2018
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also chimed in to defend the study, claiming that Trump likes to believe his “alternative facts.”
.@realDonaldTrump prefers his “alternative facts” to the tragedy faced by families of the lost. Worse still, the GOP is determined to shield his insulting behavior from accountability. It’s time for Republicans in Congress to get back to performing our crucial oversight function. https://t.co/f2j2pEfQYa
— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) September 13, 2018
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, who became a high-profile Puerto Rican critic of Trump’s handling of Hurricane Maria, called the president’s words “delusional, paranoid, and unhinged from any sense of reality.”
Mr Trump you can try and bully us with your tweets BUT WE KNOW OUR LIVES MATTER. You will never take away our self respect. Shame on you! pic.twitter.com/KlMzClvzkA
— Carmen Yulín Cruz (@CarmenYulinCruz) September 13, 2018
Earlier this week Trump touted his administration’s response to Hurricane Maria, calling it “incredibly successful.” That comments elicited immediate backlash from critics who saw the federal response to the storm as extremely lacking after, for example, it took 11 months for power to be fully restored to the island.
The controversial tweets from the president on Thursday comes as his administration prepares to deal with Hurricane Florence, which is set to make landfall on the East Coast this week.
