After Donald Trump's magnanimous round of paper towel tossing in 2017 while visiting hurricane-torn Puerto Rico, Trump really thinks the U.S. territory has gotten quite enough relief already. In fact, "He doesn’t want another single dollar going to the island," according to a White House aide.
After asking his aides last month to find ways of limiting aid to the island, Trump made his stance perfectly clear again Tuesday at a meeting with GOP senators on Capitol Hill. Though Trump mostly bragged about the end of Robert Mueller's investigation, fantasized about killing health care for millions of Americans, and mocked the Green New Deal because who cares about climate change, he also found time to “complain” about the amount of relief going to Puerto Rico and its residents, who still haven't come close to recovering from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria.
But true to form, Trump lied to emphasize his point, claiming that Puerto Rico has gotten $91 billion in aid, while Texas was granted $29 billion following a series of hurricane hits. Only, the $91 billion is pure fantasy, writes the Washington Post.
But it’s unclear where Trump got the figure for Puerto Rico aid. It is similar to estimates of the amount of damage as opposed to what Congress has approved for relief. One congressional official said it’s difficult to quantify how much aid the island received because of how the money is disbursed.
So difficult, in fact, that the inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced Tuesday it would examine whether the White House had hampered the disbursement of relief funding allocated to Puerto Rico. Congress, for instance, has allocated $20 billion in HUD relief for the island, but only $1.5 billion has been approved to be spent, according the Post.
And if Trump had his way, Puerto Ricans wouldn't see a dime of it, because they haven't suffered enough in Trump's book.