Puerto Rico Governor Fires Back at Trump’s Tweets: Victims Don’t Deserve to Have Their Pain Questioned
Puerto Rico Gov. Rossello responds to Trump: "I have to say that neither the people of Puerto Rico nor the victims, deserve their pain to be questioned." (via CBS) pic.twitter.com/QPwCizmIaz
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 13, 2018
Governor of Puerto Rico Ricardo Rosselló has responded to President Donald Trump‘s tweets this morning dismissing the 2,975 death doll and baselessly saying the increased number is politically motivated:
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
Earlier this week, after Trump touted the “unsung success” of the government’s Puerto Rico response, Democratic Governor Ricardo Rosselló put out a statement taking issue with his comments, but after today’s insanity he was more direct in comments to CBSN:
“Neither the people of Puerto Rico nor the victims deserve their pain to be questioned. We went through a rigorous scientific process, we externalized the investigation so it was an independent investigation… we are very confident that under the current situations here in Puerto Rico, the value of the investigation was very good, it was very robust.”
“We are confident in that estimate,” he said of the death toll.
Rosselló also put out a statement today saying the tragedy should not be politicized:
No es hora de negar lo que sucedió: es hora de asegurarse de que no vuelva a ocurrir. pic.twitter.com/jLXpCynabD
— Ricardo Rossello (@ricardorossello) September 13, 2018
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this post identified Governor Rosselló as a Republican. He is a Democrat.
[image via screengrab]
