There goes the news cycle…
President Donald Trump is disputing the revised official death toll on Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria, saying Democrats have inflated the actual number of people who died to make him look bad:
3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
…..This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
The official death toll now stands at 2975:
The official death toll is now 2,975. https://t.co/MW44OPKoAw
— Cristiano Lima (@viaCristiano) September 13, 2018
This number includes people who died during the storm and an estimate of those who died after the storm “due to lack of support and infrastructure”:
GW University researchers counted "indirect deaths" from the hurricane after 6 months – which resulted in the updated 2,975 count https://t.co/fNbEZ4hdes
— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) September 13, 2018
The death toll is 2,975 according to an independent study the Puerto Rico government officially accepted several weeks ago. They died as a result of the hurricane and in the months following due to lack of support and infrastructure https://t.co/1NmcWWjWgh https://t.co/GSJhdwy5yL
— Robbie Gramer (@RobbieGramer) September 13, 2018
The GWU study did take into account deaths from natural causes in its estimate:
The GWU study found nearly 3,000 MORE deaths than would have been expected in PR in the 6 months that followed Maria. Deaths from old age and many other things also happened but were not included in this count. https://t.co/YrP6lM1m5a
— David Nakamura (@DavidNakamura) September 13, 2018
Link to that study here:
Thread now from @POTUS on the #HurricaneMaria deaths. Here's the @GWpublichealth study @realDonaldTrump is disputing: https://t.co/eJ1UE8jBrl https://t.co/dQR42oE4cA
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) September 13, 2018
The reaction is pretty much what you’d expect:
I know we say this a lot, but wow https://t.co/Zp1yEOMPl6
— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) September 13, 2018
I didn't think he could make this worse than his 1st tweet
But he did! https://t.co/OJqCsCEZqP
— Chris Cillizza (@CillizzaCNN) September 13, 2018
He has lost it.
Anyone who defends this or his presidency is complicit. https://t.co/SVEN99Btau
— Zac Petkanas (@Zac_Petkanas) September 13, 2018
the biggest victim of hurricane maria turns out to be donald trump. the people who died, it was their time. https://t.co/Srqf7uNe4n
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) September 13, 2018
.@chefjoseandres responds: "We knew what was happening. People knew that maybe a lot of people didn’t die right during the hurricane, but the number began increasing very quickly. … Those things were real, were happening." https://t.co/6hM879Q9EL
— Norah O'Donnell?? (@NorahODonnell) September 13, 2018
***
Related:
Brian Stelter, who didn't tweet about Puerto Rico for 7 months, criticizes media coverage of Puerto Rico https://t.co/OKKBi0GCeQ
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) June 5, 2018
STOP! Bill de Blasio hammered for lecturing Trump about Puerto Rico while this happens in NYC https://t.co/ZiHxZStXs8
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) April 16, 2018
TFW Charles C.W. Cooke uses Jon Favreau's own WORDS to DESTROY him and his FALSE Puerto Rico tweet https://t.co/uWIZWbVyMt
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) January 29, 2018
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