Sarah Huckabee Sanders Responds To Critics Who Say Trump ‘Botched’ The Crisis In Puerto Rico

The current narrative is this: President Trump hates Puerto Ricans. He doesn’t want to help them, he’s purposefully being slow and he called them all ingrates.

Is that reality of the situation? No. But narrative.

For those trying to see through the politically motivated attacks, here’s an actual timeline, which shows the federal response to the disaster in Puerto Rico.

For those who don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story here’s the actual timeline of massive federal response in Puerto Rico-> pic.twitter.com/FnWgpnRy7A

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) September 30, 2017

Here’s a bigger graphic:

By the way, even Bloomberg is admitting that Trump did not botch the Puerto Rico crisis. Former Navy Captain Jerry Hendrix told Bloomberg that the criticism hasn’t been fair.

TH: So, it seems like everybody has blasted Trump administration’s response to the Puerto Rico crisis. Has that criticism been fair?

 

JH: No, I don’t think so. First of all, there was a fair amount of anticipatory action that is not being recognized. Amphibious ships, including the light amphibious carriers Kearsarge and Wasp and the amphibious landing ship dock Oak Hill were at sea and dispatched to Puerto Rico ahead of the hurricane’s impact.

 

These are large ships that have large flight decks to land and dispatch heavy-lift CH-53 helicopters to and from disaster sites. They also have big well-decks — exposed surfaces that are lower than the fore and aft of the ship — from which large landing craft can be dispatched to shore carrying over 150 tons of water, food and other supplies on each trip. These are actually the ideal platforms for relief operations owing to their range of assets. The ships, due to their designs to support Marine amphibious landings in war zones, also have hospitals onboard to provide medical treatment on a large scale. That these ships were in the area should be viewed as a huge positive for the administration and the Department of Defense.

Sure. He said there are areas for improvement, but this isn’t a total miss, even though MSM is characterizing it that way.

TH: Your plaudits toward the White House on all this are surprising to say the least. But where does the response still need to improve?

 

JH: One area in which the Trump administration could possibly lend additional assistance would be looking at a more robust activation of its assets in the Defense Department’s Transportation Command to include more heavy-lift and cargo aircraft, as well as Maritime Administrationshipping to move the logistics-heavy large infrastructure items on the ocean. Everything from bulldozers to transformers needs to come by ships, and it’s been decades since it was really flexed to its full capacity. This would have the dual purpose of revealing any significant weaknesses in the Transportation Command assets and readiness should we need it in a military emergency down the road.

All I’m saying is, Puerto Rico needs help, and this back and forth “Trump said this, the Mayor of San Juan said that” crap isn’t helping ANYONE.