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San Juan mayor: Trump has been a jerk to Puerto Rico

By on November 13, 2018

SAN JUAN – “He has been a jerk to the country.” That is how the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz Soto, reacted to alleged remarks by President Trump about not wanting to send additional funds to Puerto Rico for its recovery from Hurricane Maria.

The actual adjective the mayor used to describe Trump’s behavior is patán, which the Royal Spanish Academy defines as a crude, or unrefined, person, and which the “Lexicographical Treasury of the Spanish of Puerto Rico,” of the Puerto Rican Academy of the Spanish Language, includes as a definition: abusive, gross, male chauvinist.

Last Sunday, Axios reported that the president “doesn’t want to include additional Puerto Rico funding in further spending bills,” according to a congressional leadership aide.

According to CNN, White House officials have told congressional leaders and appropriators that Trump does not want any additional relief funding sent to Puerto Rico, a congressional leadership aide told the media company on Monday.

“The people of Puerto Rico have to take that into account and demand from those who side with him. Those who say he has given Puerto Rico everything it asked for. To demand from them that in one voice we tell the president that Puerto Rico is respected,” Cruz Soto said.

The mayor said Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds are a right the people have because it is insurance that is even paid in mortgages.

“If he doesn’t have control of his government, then he should solve that matter. But every time the president talks about Puerto Rico, he reveals his ignorance,” she said.
In Trump’s alleged remarks, he argues that his wariness has to do with a Wall Street Journal article that said: “Puerto Rico bond prices soared…after the federal oversight board that runs the U.S. territory’s finances released a revised fiscal plan that raises expectations for disaster funding and economic growth.”

When the fiscal plan’s certification process was taking place, Trump had claimed in a tweet that Puerto Rico’s “inept politicians are trying to use the massive and ridiculously high amounts of hurricane/disaster funding to pay off other obligations.”
Gov. Ricardo Rosselló Nevares declined to comment on because he said the report was based on sources.

“We are talking about an article that originated from a source,” the governor said. “If I were to react to every source there is, I’ll never be able to address the main issues.”

“Secondly,” he further told the media, “if the president has changed his position on Puerto Rico, he can, as he has done a million times, take out his phone and open his Twitter application and post what he thinks” of Puerto Rico.

“Until I corroborate those remarks I do not want to comment about his intentions. Now, I do want to comment that if someone or something is going to try to stop the resources of the people of Puerto Rico, they will receive my fierce opposition on all fronts and with all the mechanisms I have [to fight it],” he stressed.

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