For the past several days, President Donald Trump and San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz have been conducting a verbal tug-of-war over the federal government’s response to the devastation caused to Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria.
On Sunday, Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera interviewed Cruz, and asked her some tough questions about some of the claims she has been making over the past week, The Daily Caller reported.
“There are people at all municipalities literally starving, dehydrating. We have had our hospital try to go back to speed but then the electricity goes off and we have to do all the bacteria testing, which takes three to four days,” Cruz said.
“But are people dying? I’ve been traveling around, I don’t see people dying. I spoke to the doctors, they say they saw 53 patients and they had a person who was septic, but nobody dying,” Rivera asked.
Cruz has been claiming that people are dying, but the official death toll still remains 16.
“Dying is a continuum. If you don’t get fed for seven, eight days and you’re a child, you are dying. If you have 11 people like we took out of a nursing home, severely dehydrated, you are dying,” Cruz explained.
That’s a pretty wishy-washy way of to pretend you weren’t just called out for your comments. While we’re on the subject, how on earth did she get a shirt that said “help us, people are dying,” on an island where people can’t even get food?
“The death count was 16 a week ago. It remains 16 today. People are not dying. That does not mean that they have all the supplies they need. That does not mean that this power company, this corrupt inept power company should not be hounded,” Rivera stated after the interview.
You can watch the interview below:
Puerto Rico has been absolutely devastated by Hurricane Maria. It is going to take a while for the infrastructure to be rebuilt to the point where supplies can actually reach all points of the island.
Trump is going to visit the island on Tuesday (though that may change given the recent mass shooting in Las Vegas), and hopefully seeing the devastation first hand will help speed up the response to this horrific disaster.
Now is not the time political grandstanding. Right now all sides should be focused on helping these American citizens rebuild and move forward.