Category: Disaster Response

On Day of Mass Shooting, Trump Jokes He Nearly Canceled Speech Due To ‘Bad Hair Day’

On the day of a horrific shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that claimed the lives of at least 11 people, some people wondered if President Donald Trump would go ahead with planned events for the day, including speaking at the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis and a rally in Illinois.

Trump decided to go ahead with both events, but he did joke at the convention for young future farmers that he almost canceled for another reason ― a bad hair day.

He recalled for the crowd that earlier in the day, he had been holding a news conference about the mass shooting ― which he referred to as a “very unfortunate news conference” ― when he became drenched from the wind and rain. The elements apparently left his hair looking not exactly the way he likes it.

“I said, ‘Maybe I should cancel this arrangement because I have a bad hair day,’” he told the crowd. “And the bad news ― somebody said, ‘Actually it looks better than it usually does.’”

Though he drew laughter from the crowd, many people found the joke to be in poor taste, given the circumstances.

[Huffington Post]

Trump Campaign Sends Out Anti-CNN Fundraising Email Shortly After Bomb Scare

Hours after CNN’s New York headquarters were evacuated when an explosive device was found mailed to the building, President Donald Trump‘s campaign sent out a fundraising email blasting the network.

Reporter Yashar Ali tweeted out a screenshot of the fundraising email, signed by Lara Trump, which included a “Media Accountability Survey.”

“It’s time for us to give the media another wake-up call from the American people,” the email says.

The first question of the survey is: “Do you trust the mainstream media to put the interests of Americans first?”

[Mediaite]

Trump Tweets Out Outdated Death Count for Hurricane Florence

On Saturday, President Donald Trump tweeted out his “deepest sympathies” to the families and friends of those who have lost loved ones in Hurricane Florence.

“Five deaths have been recorded thus far with regard to Hurricane Florence! Deepest sympathies and warmth go out to the families and friends of the victims. May God be with them!” Trump wrote.

The death toll in Florence is actually, and sadly, up to at least 11 (some reports have it at 12) on Saturday after being reported as 5 on Friday.

As per Fox News:

The death toll attributed to Florence stands at 11, including 10 in North Carolina and one in South Carolina. Authorities say some other fatalities were unrelated.

Trump’s misreporting of the death toll comes on the heels of his repeated denial that 3000 people died in Puerto Rico following the devastating hurricanes on the island.

[Mediaite]

Trump Once Again Rejects Puerto Rican Death Toll : ‘FIFTY TIMES LAST ORIGINAL NUMBER – NO WAY!’

On Friday night, President Donald Trump tweeted out a quote from the Washington Post in a pair of tweets defending his decidedly false claim that 3000 people did not die as the result of hurricanes in Puerto Rico.

“’When Trump visited the island territory last October, OFFICIALS told him in a briefing 16 PEOPLE had died from Maria.’ The Washington Post. This was long AFTER the hurricane took place. Over many months it went to 64 PEOPLE. Then, like magic, ‘3000 PEOPLE KILLED.’ They hired…” Trump tweeted out in the first part of the tweet.

Then 18 minutes later, he added: “GWU Research to tell them how many people had died in Puerto Rico (how would they not know this?). This method was never done with previous hurricanes because other jurisdictions know how many people were killed. FIFTY TIMES LAST ORIGINAL NUMBER – NO WAY!”

The quote Trump tweeted out appears to be referencing this statement from WaPo:

When Trump visited the island territory last October, officials told him in a briefing that 16 people had died from Maria. But Puerto Rican officials doubled the death toll to 34 later that day.

That quote comes from an article titled, “Trump creates political storm with false claim on Puerto Rico hurricane death toll.”

The reference to GWU Research refers to the independent research study the Puerto Rican government commissioned to track the hurricane deaths.

The whole kerfuffle started with another, earlier tweet where Trump wrote, “3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico.”

As CNN and WaPo noted, Trump’s claim that 3000 people did not die does not stack up to the facts.

[Mediaite]

Trump Reaffirms Praise For Gov’t Response to Puerto Rico as Death Toll Updated to 2,975: ‘Fantastic Job’

President Donald Trump responded to the new shocking death toll in Puerto Rico caused by Hurricane Maria last year by saying the government “did a fantastic job.”

The new toll, which was found by researchers at George Washington University who were commissioned by Puerto Rico, raised deaths caused by the disaster from 64 to just below 2,975.

“I think we did a fantastic job in Puerto Rico. We’re still helping Puerto Rico. The governor is an excellent guy, he’s very happy with the job we’ve done,” Trump told reporters today. “We’ve put billions and billions of dollars into Puerto Rico, and it was a very tough one.”

He continued by saying that “we’ve put a lot of money and a lot of effort into Puerto Rico” and added that he thinks “most of the people in Puerto Rico really appreciate what we’ve done.”

The comments echoed what Trump has said in the past about the US territory, as he infamously bragged just days after the storm that only “16 people [died] verses in the thousands,” which he claimed was good compared to “a real catastrophe like Katrina.”

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a statement of her own after the new death toll came out this week, saying, “The President remains proud of all of the work the Federal family undertook to help our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico.”

[Mediaite]

Report: Trump Favored Texas Over Puerto Rico in Storm Aid

The Trump administration reacted much more aggressively to Hurricane Harvey in Texas than it did to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, according to a Politico investigation. In its review of documents and records, Politico found that more resources—from helicopters to meals and personnel—were given to Texas in the first nine days of the storm response, despite the fact that conditions in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria were more dire. Funds were also allocated faster to Texas—with $141.8 million being approved for Harvey victims in the nine days after the storm versus $6.2 million for victims of Maria. The rebuilding effort has already started in Texas, while the Trump administration is reportedly “forcing [Puerto Rico] to take a huge gamble” on an “experimental funding system,” the outlet reported. FEMA Administrator Brock Long denied the difference in response and said the agency “provided Puerto Rico the same, if not more support, as we have for all presidentially declared disasters across the nation, but an optimal response cannot rely on FEMA’s efforts alone.”

[The Daily Beast]

Mostly positive FEMA reports under Obama removed

In a rare move, the government watchdog for the Federal Emergency Management Agency has removed a dozen largely positive reports evaluating how the agency responded under President Obama to several disasters from 2012 to 2016, according to an internal memo obtained by USA TODAY.

The 12 reports were rescinded by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General because they “may have not adequately answered objectives and, in some cases, may have lacked sufficient and appropriate evidence to support conclusions,” read the internal memo issued Thursday. “In an abundance of caution, we believe it best to recall the reports and not re-issue them.”

The reports being removed include initial assessments of FEMA’s response to several disasters including two reports in 2013 on Hurricane Sandy in the Northeast, a 2014 report on storms and tornadoes in Oklahoma, and a 2016 report on severe wildfires in California.

All of them praised the agency, using words such as “effective” and “efficient” to characterize the agency’s immediate response to major calamities. Typical of language used in these reports, the Inspector General commended FEMA’s response to the storms and flooding that hammered South Carolina in 2015.

[USA Today]

President says he would’ve entered Florida high school without a gun

President Donald Trump on Monday was meeting with most of the nation’s governors as he discussed gun control, world trade and North Korea.

Trump criticized the Florida deputies who didn’t confront the shooter at the massacre that left at least 17 dead, saying they “weren’t exactly Medal of Honor winners,” according to the Associated Press.

“I really believe I’d run in there even if I didn’t have a weapon,” added Trump, who avoided serving in the Vietnam War by saying he had bone spurs.

At the meeting, Trump suggested he might have to break with the National Rifle Association, which has opposed the president’s call for a minimum age on rifle purchases. “If the NRA is not with you, you have fight them once in a while,” he said. He did disclose he had lunch with NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre.

He blamed the governors in the room for closing mental-health institutions. “In the old days” it was easier to commit people who acted “like a boiler ready to explode,” Trump said.

[MarketWatch]

Trump Says Florida Students Should Have Done More To Prevent Deadly Shooting

President Donald Trump on Thursday responded to the massacre at a South Florida high school by suggesting students and the surrounding community could have done more to prevent the attack.

At least 17 people were killed and 15 injured after a troubled former student opened fire on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Wednesday, police said. Nikolas Cruz, 19, had been expelled from the school the previous year for “disciplinary reasons,” and many of his former classmates told media on Wednesday that he displayed problematic behavior.

“Honestly a lot of people were saying it was going to be him,” one student told CBS Miami. “We actually, a lot of kids threw jokes around like that, saying that he’s the one to shoot up the school, but it turns out everyone predicted it. It’s crazy.”

A former teacher, Jim Gard, told the Miami Herald that Cruz reportedly wasn’t allowed to carry a backpack on the school campus, and that “there were problems with him last year threatening students.”

Contrary to Trump’s tweet, it does appear that authorities were aware of Cruz’s behavior before the attack. A former neighbor told The New York Times that Cruz’s late mother called the police on her two sons on multiple occasions, though she stressed that she didn’t think the boys were violent. Broward County Mayor Beam Furr told CNN that Cruz had been treated at a mental health clinic in the past and  was somewhat on officials’ radar.

“It wasn’t like there wasn’t concern for him,” Furr said.

Trump’s tweet failed to acknowledge the role that Florida’s lax gun laws played in the shooting. Barring institutionalization, it’s extremely difficult to keep someone with a history of mental illness from buying a gun in Florida. The accused killer legally purchased the AR-15-style rifle used in the slaughter, his family’s attorney said.
The president also ignored the fact that he actually made it easier for people with mental health issues to buy guns by revoking an Obama-era gun regulation last year.

[Huffington Post]

Trump says military should not have to help with food, water distribution in Puerto Rico

President Donald Trump said the military shouldn’t have to distribute the “massive amounts” of food and water that have been delivered to storm-battered Puerto Rico.

When a reporter asked Trump about disaster relief on the island, the president said that food and water had been brought to Puerto Rico, but it wasn’t being distributed by local people.

“They have to distribute the food to the people of the island. So, what we’ve done is, we now actually have military distributing food, something that really they shouldn’t have to be doing,” he said in a wide-ranging, hastily scheduled press conference on Monday.

The remark follows comments Trump made last week, where he partly blamed the island for the devastation and said emergency responders can’t stay in Puerto Rico “forever.”

Puerto Rico has been reeling in the wake of Hurricane Maria, which left most of the U.S. territory without power or access to clean drinking water. Over the weekend, local authorities raised the death toll to 48 after reviewing medical records.

A local economist projected that the wreckage may have set back Puerto Rico’s economy so much that it will now take more than a decade to recover.

Trump said Monday that aid operations in Puerto Rico are “very tough” because the island “was in very poor shape before the hurricanes ever hit.” The island had more than $70 billion in debt before Maria landed.

The president has faced criticism for an apparent lack of empathy for Puerto Rico amid the disaster response.

During a trip to the island earlier this month, Trump said the hurricane destruction had thrown his administration’s budget “a little out of whack.” Later that day, he tossed packages of paper towels to hurricane victims.

While Trump has said his administration has done a great job responding to the crisis on the island, a recent poll found that most voters disagreed. Fifty-five percent of American voters say the Trump administration has not done enough to help the U.S. territory after Hurricane Maria struck, according to a Quinnipiac poll released last week.

[NBC News]

Reality

Donald Trump is continuing his racist reasoning that the people or Puerto Rico are too lazy to help themselves.

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