President Trump on hurricane response challenges in Puerto Rico: “This is a thing called the Atlantic Ocean. This is tough stuff.” pic.twitter.com/03UUPklJ4i
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 26, 2017
President Trump on hurricane response challenges in Puerto Rico: “This is a thing called the Atlantic Ocean. This is tough stuff.”
Donald Trump blamed the Atlantic Ocean for the federal government’s failed response to Hurricane Maria’s devastation of the American territory of Puerto Rico.
“This is a thing called the Atlantic Ocean. This is tough stuff,” President Trump stated in a Rose Garden press conference with Prime Minister of Spain Mariano Rajoy.
The press conference marked the second time Tuesday that Trump blamed the ocean for the humanitarian crisis. Earlier, Trump stated, “it’s an island, sitting in the middle of an ocean.
No shit, Sherlock. Did someone just tell you that? Most of us know the basics of Puerto Rico, including the fact it’s in the Caribbean Sea, another really tough one, you bet. That does not excuse your ignorant, boneheaded mutterings and complete failure of proper response. Really, who the hell knew oceans are tough stuff? Perhaps the Tiny Tyrant should be tossed off a yacht for a while. After all, he’s the great businessman winner winner winner, so naturally, he could tame the ocean, or make a deal with it. It’s worth experimenting.
You can see some of the responses here.
Did you know that? I just want to tell you. You can believe me.
Yep, exactly. I’m assuming no one has tried to inform him that there are more oceans than Atlantic and Pacific.
(The following was originally posted by Lynna in poopyhead’s Political Madness All the Time thread. Unfortunately, no source was given for the quote.)
Except that helicopter transport of patients is what the USNS Comfort often does. They did that to serve earthquake victims in Haiti. The ship operated that way off the coast of Nicaragua. Etc. The ship has helicopter pad that can be operated day and night.
blf:
Well, yeah. Helicopters totally don’t work when they fly from over water to over land. If they stay over the water, all is good. Same for staying over land. But to go from one to the other? That would sink the Good Ship Comfort.
What do you want to bet the fucking idiot has vacationed in Puerto Rico, at least once? Or has built something there, or tried to? And still, someone had to tell him it was an island.
I swear, I’ll end up dead of embarrassment.
He had a golf course there. Guess what happened to it.
Sigh. I don’t even, I don’t know what to say anymore.
Ogvorbis@4, My suspicion is how many helicopters the Comfort carries, and how long it can keep them aloft. Ye Pffft! of All Knowledge doesn’t say, and in the specific case of the Haiti earthquake, the supercarrier Carl Vincent was also deployed — which obviously has helicopters and a means to support long-duration missions. (Plus its own hospital, etc.) That guess doesn’t make the decision any less stupid.
BREAKING, Clinton pressed Trump to deploy hospital ship Comfort to Puerto Rico. Now it’s on the way:
The article goes on to explain the reasoning behind the original decision not to send the Comfort was “The Puerto Rican government did not ask for more Navy ships, but logistical support that includes getting its 60-plus hospitals up and running […]. In light of that, the Pentagon made the judgment call to send in a fleet of Air Force jets loaded with supplies and medical personnel beginning Friday, after the Army Corps of Engineers re-opened Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in San Juan”. Not sending the Comfort still strikes me as stupid. And as a reader’s comment points out, “‘They did not ask for it’ sounds like a pretty lame excuse to me. Kind of like that ‘dog eating the paper’ excuse from grade school.”
Well, y’know, Pres. Pinchpork couldn’t be bothered with taming the Atlantic, or doing something silly, like helping people, because there’s that whole disrespectful NFL thing, even tougher than the Atlantic.
Trump’s golf course there folded with $600m in losses and tax debt. You damn betcha he knows where it is. He’s probably afraid they have a warrant out for him.
If I were him I would worry about going to an island. Because they might fly off and leave him there.
But who are we kidding: they are brown and don’t speak American. Besides: Benghazi! Email!
Yep. It went bankrupt in July-2015.
I’m not currently aware of any other properties he had, or still has, there.
And, of course, hair furor has been whining about Puerto Rico’s debt problems. That from someone who has had multiple properties, etc, go bankrupt…
Marcus:
So…he’s not going to show with the missus in spikes?
“Donald Trump will visit Puerto Rico next Tuesday”: Trump warned: send help or risk making Puerto Rico crisis ‘your Katrina’.
Well, that should be priceless. I really am going to die of embarrassment.
Another stoooopid problem is the Jones Act (Merchant Marine Act (1920)), which requires “only American ships could carry goods and passengers from one United States port to another. In addition, every ship must be built, crewed and owned by American citizens.” Apparently hair furor and teh dalekocracy has refused to waive this and allow “foreign” ships to assist. (Weirdly, the law doesn’t apply to the US Virgin Islands.)
(Mostly from The Law Strangling Puerto Rico.)
BTW, I misquoted. Trump’s failed golf course was $33million in debt. In Trump terms a fairly small fail.
Well, when TRump talks about Puerto Rico’s debt, he knows what he’s talking about.
If only some machine could be invented that would allow people & goods to travel atop water or even over it.
Re: blf (#15):
Oh no! That sounds like Big Government is interfering with the Invisible Hand Of The Market, choking Small Businesses with Unreasonable Regulatory Burdens. Somebody ought to call the Republicans. If they knew about it the law would be repealed by noon tomorrow. Just don’t let on that there might be a humanitarian angle to this.
Re: bustereggi (#18):
Pah, unless there are military applications you’d never get the funding. And if there are it’s classified and not for civilian use. Either way it’ll be twenty years away for the next fifty years. Travel over water, really. That’s god’s domain and not for mere mortals.
My feeling is that if someone had said -- What if we treat it like an invasion? It’s only 100 miles long and 35 wide.
How many planes, ships, helicopters, troops do we need to take over every town and village? That many? Okay, that’s what we’ll do then. And do it. It would all have been well and truly under way by now. Instead they’ve got 300 people with a ghastly version of conjunctivitis in one town and they’re expecting cholera-dysentery-hepatitis to break out in more than a few places some time this week.