Focused on Debt Amid Puerto Rico Crisis, Maria Fast Becoming Trump's Katrina

With his failure to provide relief after Hurricane Maria looking increasingly like George W. Bush’s too-little and too-late response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, President Donald Trump’s critics are denouncing his most recent tweets on the situation in Puerto Rico, where more than three million American citizens are without electricity and the humanitarian crisis continues to worsen.

After spending the weekend attacking NFL players for protesting racial inequality and police brutality, the president posted three tweets about Puerto Rico on Monday night—assuring that the situation is under control while suggesting that the U.S. is limited in the help it can offer because of the island territory’s debts.

Contrary to Trump’s statement, the island is not “doing well” in terms of the food and water that’s been made available to it thus far. Though the federal response was ramped up on Monday, with FEMA administrator Brock Long traveling to Puerto Rico to assess the vast damage, Phillip Carter of the Center for a New American Security called the relief efforts “anemic” in an article at Slate.

While Puerto Ricans grapple with a badly damaged agricultural sector, eliminating a major food source; long lines for fuel, a dwindling resource; and the possibility of electricity remaining out for no less than a month and possibly six months, the mayor of San Juan sharply rebuked Trump for bringing up the territory’s debts.