President Trump has no idea what's happening in Puerto Rico

[DonViejo]

His sunny self-praise about hurricane relief is a sign of a much deeper problem.

By Jeremy Konyndyk October 6 at 6:00 AM

Jeremy Konyndyk is a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development and teaches humanitarian field operations at Georgetown University. He served from 2013 to 2017 as the Obama administration's director for foreign disaster assistance at USAID, overseeing the U.S. government's Ebola response in West Africa and other emergencies.

Extraordinary crises are the acid test of presidential leadership.

As I learned while managing the Obama administration’s response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, a president’s personal engagement is the indispensable variable in ensuring a fully engaged federal crisis response. In the face of unusually complex and devastating emergencies, the federal government must transcend business-as-usual, mounting the sort of massive whole-of-government effort that only the president can fully mobilize. What the nation has witnessed in Puerto Rico over the past two weeks sadly demonstrates the inverse: the shortfalls that emerge when a president leaves a major federal disaster response on autopilot.

President Trump’s tactless comments during his visit to San Juan this week provide a good microcosm of the larger issue. Trump repeatedly downplayed the severity of the crisis; described his administration’s response as “incredible” and “unbelievable”; praised the then-official death toll of 16 as something Puerto Ricans “can be very proud of”; told disaster survivors at a distribution site “you don’t need” the flashlights he was handing to them; and claimed Puerto Rico had not experienced a “real catastrophe, like Hurricane Katrina.” Those remarks followed other comments from Trump and his senior advisers who have characterized the federal response as “amazing,” and “a good news story.”

As tone-deaf as Trump’s self-congratulations were, they reflect a much deeper problem than just a flawed communications strategy. The president’s remarks in Puerto Rico were factually wrong in ways that raise serious questions about whether he grasps the depth of the crisis — and whether he truly has a handle on the federal response.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/10/06/president-trump-has-no-idea-whats-happening-in-puerto-rico/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-c%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.bc52da90ab9e

[MineralMan]

1. He also has zero interest in finding out.

That's not his style. But, here's a flashlight and a roll of paper towels. Seeya!

[Girard442]

2. It gives Trump too much credit to say he doesn't know.

Do you really think that if someone sat down and explained it to him, he'd say "OMG, we have to help those people!"

He knows those people will die. He wants it to happen.

[Shrike47]

4. I disagree. He doesn't want them to die. He's indifferent. They aren't real to him.

Anybody who isn't him or applauding him is just taking up space.

[unblock]

3. he spouts what he wants to be facts as if they were facts.

agreeing with him is a sign of loyalty, disagreeing with him is a sign of playing politics.

this is all stuff straight out of the emperor's new clothes story.


donnie has no idea what's happening? his job as he sees it is to create a better spin.
the media's job as he sees it is to broadcast his better spin.

actual facts? he not only doesn't care about that, he views reliance on actual facts as a weakness.

[Motley13]

5. Doesn't know, doesn't care

[MyOwnPeace]

8. This

describes his entire philosophy about the Presidency!

HE IS A FOOL!

[DK504]

6. That's one of the glaring differences in President and the Moron.

President put experienced grown ups in the positions, not sycophants and the Moron hasn't bother to fill positions vital to running the government. President Obama would send in the teams of people that knew what the hell they were doing BEFORE the hurricanes hit and when it was over they would swarm, or when tornados hit, the professional would again, swarm, and on and on.

The Moron has always had his head so far up his ass he has no idea what the fuck actually happens outside that hideous Russian inspired gaudy gilded monstrosity. That he is sociopath has not helped either, he couldn't give a damn about any one else but himself.

Throwing paper towels at people that need water, food and medicine must have stoked his sadist streak for days.

[MFM008]

7. He doesn't know

ANYTHING.

[Not Ruth]

9. Every single person in the ICUs died, and not one word in the press

[procon]

10. If it isn't stroking his ego, Trump couldn't care less about Americans in peril. nt