While San Juan's mayor begs for help, Trump says the disaster response has 'been incredible'
On Friday morning, President Trump had some sobering remarks for Puerto Rico as it attempts to recover and rebuild from its hurricane devastation. "We've never seen a situation like this," he said, vowing support.
What a difference half a day makes. Departing the White House on Friday afternoon en route to his New Jersey golf club, Trump had a more positive spin on Puerto Rico's historic destruction. "The loss of life, it's always tragic," he said to reporters. "But it's been incredible. The results that we've had with the respect to loss of life. People can't believe how successful that has been, relatively speaking."
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But in Puerto Rico, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz disagreed with the president's assessment. "Where have you been?" Cruz asked in a press conference Friday afternoon of that same federal disaster response. "I have been patient, but we have no time for patience anymore."
"I will do what I never thought I was going to do," Cruz continued. "I am begging. Begging anyone that can hear us to save us from dying. If anybody out there is listening to us, we are dying, and you are killing us with the inefficiency."
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