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Rep.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezstepped in for some course correction after PresidentDonald Trumpappeared to offer a bit of revisionist history regarding his response to the hurricane that devastated Puerto Rico in 2017.
As the areabraces for Hurricane Dorian, Trump lashed out against the territory on Twitter, slamming it as “one of the most corrupt places on earth” and praising himself as being “the best thing” to ever happen to the island.
However, Trump was likely not taking into account his widely-criticized response to Hurricane Maria, theCategory 5 storm that killed thousands of peopleon the island and caused an estimated $90 billion in damage in September 2017.
Ocasio-Cortez, a freshman Democratic congresswoman from New York, wasted no time in pointing out that detail to Trump to put his claims in check.
“3,000 Americans died on your watch,” the politician, 29, wrote on Twitter. “You’re not the best thing to happen to anybody but yourself. And even that’s questionable.”
Trump, 73, was criticized in the storm’s aftermath and accused of failing to meet the territory’s needs, as U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico went without power for months and barely had drinking water for weeks, according toThe Atlantic. The Senate reached a two-year budget deal that would give Puerto Rico almost $16 billion in aid, but it was far short of the $94.4 billion officials said they needed to rebuild the island and prevent future devastation, theNew York Timesreported.
The president visited the island shortly after Maria hit, and met with survivors in a church, where he tossed rolls of paper towels into the crowd.
Evan Vucci/AP
“I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, you’ve thrown our budget a little out of whack, because we’ve spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico,” he said at a press conference during his visit. “And that’s fine. We’ve saved a lot of lives.”
RELATED VIDEO: Hurricane Maria Batters Puerto Rico
He later blamed the Democrats in a follow-up tweet, claiming they’d puffed up the numbers “in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico.”
source: people.com
