Donald Trump in Puerto Rico: Lives saved, but budget ‘out of whack’

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump visited storm-ravaged Puerto Rico on Tuesday, touting the federal response amid power, food and water shortages, but also making what critics saw as insensitive comments about the struggling island.

Trump commended FEMA and military aid efforts at a briefing, greeted residents on the streets of San Juan, and tossed rolls of paper towels into a crowd gathered for supplies in a chapel.

At a roundtable discussion in Carolina, Trump, while noting that lives have been saved, told the territory’s officials that their storm recovery has thrown the federal budget “out of whack.”

He then contrasted the 16 certified deaths caused by Hurricane Maria to the approximately 1,800 linked to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you’ve thrown our budget a little out of whack,” he said. “We’ve spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico, and that’s fine. We’ve saved a lot of lives.”

The president called every death a horror.

“But if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the tremendous hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died,” he said, continuing, “You can be very proud of all of your people, all of our people working together. Sixteen versus literally thousands of people. You can be very proud.”

Later, after Trump left the island, Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello updated the official death toll to 34 and said the damage was up to an estimated $90 billion.

The president, first lady Melania Trump and several Cabinet officials toured San Juan two weeks after Maria struck.

Local officials have pleaded for expedited aid and some charged the White House with a sluggish response.

Trump, who has sought to highlight his administration’s work despite the logistical challenges of delivering supplies to an island, praised those who complimented him.

“He’s not even from my party, and he started right at the beginning appreciating what we did,” Trump said of Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló. “Right from the beginning, this governor did not play politics. . . . He was saying it like it was, and he was giving us the highest grades.”

The statement recalled a criticism Trump lobbed Sunday via Twitter apparently at San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz as among the “politically motivated ingrates” on the island.

The president also had tweeted that Cruz has “poor leadership ability” and that Puerto Rico residents “want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort.”

Cruz last week took issue with acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke’s characterization of the federal response as a “good news story,” telling CNN instead, “This is a ‘people are dying’ story.”

She met Tuesday with Trump and then tweeted, “Hopefully the newly open channels of communication with WH staff will put in motion what is needed to accomplish our goal: save lives.”

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In a CNN interview, Cruz said she had good interactions with White House representatives but flagged Trump’s comment on Puerto Rico putting the budget “out of whack” and called him a “miscommunicator-in-chief.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) from Washington, D.C., said Trump was wrong to blame Puerto Rico, because the country must help its own when it’s in need.

“I don’t remember the president telling Texas that they threw our budget out of whack after Harvey. Or Florida after Irma,” Schumer said. “Yes, we’re spending money in Puerto Rico. We’re spending money to turn the power back on. To give people drinking water. And to keep life support machines working in the hospitals. And that’s what we do in America.”

Trump told reporters on Air Force One en route to Washington, D.C. that he heard no criticisms in Puerto Rico.