One week after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, President Donald Trump says he will visit the island next Tuesday, even as most of the 3.5 million US citizens who live there remain in the dark, without access to power, clean water, food and fuel. Facing withering criticism, Trump held a press conference Tuesday and denied he has neglected the disaster. His administration also denied a request from several members of Congress to waive shipping restrictions to help get gasoline and other supplies to Puerto Rico as it recovers, even though the Department of Homeland Security waived the Jones Act twice in the last month following hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which hit the mainland United States. We speak with Democracy Now! co-host Juan González and with former New York State Assemblyman Nelson Denis, who wrote about the Jones Act in The New York Times this week in a piece headlined “The Law Strangling Puerto Rico.” His book is called War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America’s Colony.
TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: One week after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, President Donald Trump says he’ll visit the island next Tuesday, under withering criticism. Maria was the most powerful hurricane to strike the US territory in nearly a century, coming just after Hurricane Irma, and destroyed the island’s entire electrical grid, caused severe flooding, widespread damage to homes and infrastructure. Most of the three-and-a-half million US citizens who live in Puerto Rico remain in the dark, without access to power, clean water, food and fuel. It took President Trump five full days to respond to the plight of Puerto Rico. He did not tweet about it over that period. Over the weekend, he tweeted 17 times about athletes protesting police violence and refusing to visit the White House. Facing criticism, Trump held a news conference Tuesday in which he congratulated himself on his response to Puerto Rico’s disaster, repeating nearly a dozen times that he was doing…