In a rally Wednesday night in Florida, Donald Trump once again attacked Puerto Rico, once again lied about disaster funds provided to it, and pitted Florida's disaster survivors against their island neighbors. Trump has been holding up passage of a supplemental disaster aid bill, which includes assistance to Florida for recovery from October's Hurricane Michael, because he refuses to give more aid to Puerto Rico, which Democrats are demanding.
He told Florida panhandle rally-goers, "You're getting your money one way or the other." The "other" is Trump's continuing lies about Puerto Rico, which is still struggling nearly two years after Hurricane Maria devastated the island, killing some 3,000 people. Trump repeated his most recent and frequent lie that Puerto Rico "got $91 billion" in aide, "the most money we’ve really given to anybody. We've never given $91 billion to a state." In actual fact, the U.S. spent $120 billion in aid to three states after Hurricane Katrina.
In reality, the island has received a fraction of Trump's inflated sum, just $11.2 billion so far with another $40.8 billion that has been allocated but has still not been deployed there. Trump is possibly inflating the number to $91 billion by included an estimated additional $50 billion that will be necessary to spend over the coming years just to reconstruct the island. Trump bolstered his claim with a piece of paper showing a bar graph that supposedly shows Puerto Rico getting more aid than Texas and Florida, saying "That's Puerto Rico. They don't like me." If he could, he'd go back to the island and retrieve all those rolls of paper towels he threw at them a few years ago.
Meanwhile, the Puerto Rican Island community of Vieques still doesn't have a rebuilt hospital. It's taken until this spring for power to be fully restored to the whole territory. Roads and housing are still needing to be rebuilt. And hurricane season is just a few weeks away.