San Juan mayor on Trump's false hurricane claims: 'Shame on you'

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz on Thursday said President Trump's "lack of respect is appalling," after the president falsely claimed that "Democrats" had inflated the Hurricane Maria death toll. Trump is "delusional, paranoid, and unhinged from any sense of reality," Yulín Cruz said.

Yulín Cruz was responding to Trump's claim that "3,000 people did not die" when Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico last year. A government report last month found that 2,975 people died on the island as a result of the storm. "This is what denial following neglect looks like," she tweeted. "Mr. [President], in the real world people died on your watch."

Trump on Wednesday said that his administration had overcome challenges in their "incredibly successful" response to Hurricane Maria, and that one of those challenges was "a totally incompetent mayor of San Juan." The mayor has long been critical of Trump's response to the disaster.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Yulín Cruz slammed Trump for calling a supposed Democratic conspiracy to inflate the hurricane's death toll "bad politics," writing, "Damn it: This is NOT about politics this was always about SAVING LIVES."