Puerto Rico to Trump: ‘We Are American Citizens’
The island territory’s top representative in Washington says the president’s efforts to blame Puerto Rico for its desperate hurricane recovery are 'shocking.'
By EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE
October 17, 2017
Just before the interview starts, Jenniffer Gonzalez tries four different numbers she’s been trying to reach back home in Puerto Rico. She gets the same error message for all of them. Can’t connect.
One call that does come through is from the White House, which is trying to explain away the president’s tweets warning that the federal response wouldn’t go on forever. Her reaction was off the record.
Gonzalez, Puerto Rico’s non-voting representative in Congress, is using what limited power she has to wheedle, cajole and beg agencies to help with an island territory she says has been put back a century—some 86 percent of Puerto Ricans are still without electricity, three weeks after the hurricane knocked out the island’s power grid, and 29 percent don’t even have potable water.
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http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/17/off-message-puerto-rico-trump-maria-215718
