CRISIS/PUERTO RICO/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump lashed out at the mayor of San Juan on Saturday for criticizing his administration’s efforts to help Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, accusing her of ‘poor leadership’ and implying that the people of the devastated island were not doing enough to help themselves.
As emergency workers and troops struggled to restore basic services in a commonwealth with no electricity and limited fuel and water, Mr. Trump spent the day at his New Jersey golf club, blasting out Twitter messages defending his response to the storm and repeatedly assailing the capital’s mayor, Carmen Yulín Cruz, and the news media…
Mr. Trump said the people of Puerto Rico should not depend entirely on the federal government. ‘They want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort,’ he wrote. ‘10,000 Federal workers now on Island doing a fantastic job. The military and first responders, despite no electric, roads, phones etc., have done an amazing job. Puerto Rico was totally destroyed.’…
In the case of Ms. Cruz, Mr. Trump took her outcry as a personal assault on him. While other presidents generally ignore most of the criticism they invariably attract, Mr. Trump is not one to let anything go unanswered. In one of his books, he titled a chapter ‘Revenge,’ writing that ‘when someone crosses you, my advice is *Get even!* If you do not get even, you are just a schmuck!’ “
-Peter Baker, “Trump Lashes Out at Puerto Rico Mayor Who Criticized Storm Response,” The New York Times online, Sept. 30, 2017