Hurricane Maria Hits Puerto Rico, and Trump’s Response is Embarrassing
On This Day In 2017
Not the Consoler-in-Chief: One obligation of our president is to console the nation—or individual people—in times of tragedy. But Trump was never up to that task. We’ve seen repeatedly that Trump has a hard time connecting with people when he’s standing anywhere other than at the podium at his rallies.
Hurricane Maria was among the worst natural disasters of his term, making landfall in Puerto Rico OTDI 2017. Do you remember what he did to help out? This video is a painful reminder…he tossed paper towels into the crowd. As Jimmy Kimmel put it, "He looked like he was operating the t-shirt cannon at a (NBA LA) Clippers game. Who does that? What planet is this man from?"
To many onlookers, his spirited tosses epitomized Trump’s personality. “One could argue it was nothing, but then you could argue it was everything,” said chef José Andrés*, who helped deliver a massive number of free meals to the island after the hurricane. “It showed such a lack of empathy.”
And as we saw earlier this week, the Trump Administration’s efforts to provide long-term help to the victims was seriously deficient. Thus, the people of Puerto Rico suffered much more, and for much longer, than they should have. Hardly surprising after Trump got the recovery efforts off to such a bad start.
Dive Deeper
* Andrés has been celebrated as one of the premier chefs of his generation. He gained particular acclaim in certain political circles in 2015. He had had plans to open a Spanish restaurant in a new Washington DC hotel owned by The Trump Organization.** But after Donald Trump made his infamous campaign speech ripping Mexicans as rapists, Andrés pulled out of the arrangement.
His firm noted, in delicate legalese: "The perception that Mr. Trump's statements were anti-Hispanic made it very difficult to recruit appropriate staff for a Hispanic restaurant, to attract the requisite number of Hispanic food patrons for a profitable enterprise, and to raise capital for what was now an extraordinarily risky Spanish restaurant." The two sides sued each other before reaching a resolution two years later.
Andrés finally did open a restaurant in that same hotel (The Bazaar by José Andrés) in 2023, eight years later than originally planned. Why did he finally agree to do so in that spot? Because by then Trump had sold the hotel and no longer had anything to do with it.
** Just to clarify, so there's no confusion: When we say "The Trump Organization" here, we are talking about the company, owned by the Trump Family, which was convicted on multiple charges of criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records connected to a 15-year tax avoidance scheme.
This is different from "The Trump Foundation," run by the Trump Family, which was forcibly dissolved in 2018 after a court found shocking patterns of illegality and fraud in their operations, and which was forced to turn over millions of dollars as part of their penalty.
Also, please note that these convictions are different from the 34 felonies for which Donald Trump was personally convicted.
We know it can be hard to keep all of The Trump Family's criminal endeavors straight. So, we're here to help.
Also:
The WaPo looks back at the infamous paper-towel toss, one year after the hurricane
The video of Kimmel's take
NPR has the settlement story