John Heilemann: Trump’s ‘The First Puerto Rican Truther’; Even Sandy Hook Truthers Are Like, ‘Dude, People Died’
NBC News commentator John Heilemann weighed in on the controversy surrounding President Donald Trump doubting the official death toll from Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria last year.
Trump took to Twitter early Thursday accusing Democrats of trying to make him look bad.
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
The Circus co-host Alex Wagner began by saying Trump has chosen to “pick a fight with the families of 3,000 dead Puerto Ricans” instead of “putting his hands on the captain’s wheel,” something she thinks was a “shocking political strategy” since there wasn’t “any thinking behind this.”
Then Heilemann chimed in.
“He’s the first Puerto Rican truther,” Heilemann told Stephen Colbert. “The notion that these people didn’t die was not a conspiracy theory anyone was talking about. Donald Trump invented that conspiracy theory today. It’s like the Sandy Hook truthers are going, ‘Dude, people died.'”
He later added that Hurricane Florence is going to do “a huge amount of damage” that the president will call his lawyer to “get her to sign an N.D.A.”
Watch the clip above, via CBS.
