6/4/2019

FEDERAL FUNDING/JOE BIDEN/NATURAL DISASTERS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Joe Biden ripped the Trump administration’s response to Hurricane Maria at a campaign stop here on Tuesday [6-4-19] night, saying he suspected that officials botched the response because they didn’t realize people in Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens…House lawmakers on Monday [6-3-19] passed a $19.1 billion disaster relief bill that includes hundreds of millions of dollars in community development grants and nutrition assistance to Puerto Rico and other islands hit by Maria in September 2017. It now awaits Trump’s signature. The president has bristled at the extra aid for Puerto Rico, called officials there ‘grossly incompetent’ and accused them of misusing previously allocated hurricane relief funding. More than 3,000 people died as a result of the hurricane, which devastated Puerto Rico. Trump has challenged that number, saying it is ‘not fair’ to count deaths that happened weeks or months after the storm, though researchers disagree with him. Biden is on a campaign swing in the early-voting state of New Hampshire. Earlier in the day, he talked to voters in Berlin and Plymouth.”

Stephanie Murray, “Biden: Does Trump know Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens?,” Politico, June 4, 2019 9:21 pm