Trump Lobs Praise, and Paper Towels, to Puerto Rico Storm Victims

WASHINGTON — President Trump ventured on Tuesday to a storm-ravaged American island territory where residents have felt neglected by their government, telling Puerto Rican officials that they should be proud that only 16 people were known to have died in Hurricane Maria.

“Sixteen versus in the thousands,” Mr. Trump said, comparing the storm’s certified death toll to the 1,833 killed in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. “You can be very proud of all of your people, all of our people working together. Sixteen versus literally thousands of people. You can be very proud.”

Shortly after Mr. Trump departed the island, Governor Ricardo Rosselló told a news conference in San Juan that deaths related to Hurricane Maria had risen to 34.

Except for that sad adjustment, the trip marked a well-worn routine for a president on his fourth visit to a disaster zone in two months: a pep rally-like briefing with officials in an aircraft hangar, a quick drive past twisted houses and uprooted trees and a brief, friendly encounter with victims of the destruction.

And like his earlier travels, it had its peculiar moments: He also gently tossed rolls of paper towels into a crowd that gathered to see him at Calvary Chapel, outside the island’s capital, San Juan.

Continue reading the main storThis time, however, Mr. Trump flew into a different kind of turbulence. Over the weekend, the president lashed out at the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz, after she complained that the federal response in Puerto Rico had fallen short of the responses in Texas and Florida. She was not mollified after meeting him.

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Mr. Trump shook hands with Carmen Yulín Cruz, right, the mayor of San Juan, but did not ask her to speak on Tuesday during a briefing held at an air base. CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times

“The first part of the meeting was a public-relations situation,” Ms. Cruz said in an interview with CNN about the briefing she attended with the president. While she said the White House staff was helpful and receptive, Mr. Trump’s communications style sometimes “gets in the way.”

“I would hope that the president of the United States stops spouting out comments that really hurt the people of Puerto Rico,” she said, “because, rather than commander in chief, he sort of becomes miscommunicator in chief.”

Mr. Trump greeted the mayor but did not invite her to speak, recognizing instead Mr. Rosselló, whom the president said “did not play politics,” and its congressional representative, who lavishly applauded the administration’s performance.

“Thank you, Mr. President, for all you have been doing for the island,” said Jenniffer González-Colón, the territory’s nonvoting representative, who declared that Washington had sent everything Puerto Rico needed.

“You were really generous,” Mr. Trump replied. “It’s so important when you have men and women that have worked so hard and so long, and many of them came from two other catastrophic hurricanes.”

The president then went around the briefing table, praising the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, military commanders and a half-dozen members of his cabinet who accompanied him to Puerto Rico — which was already facing about $74 billion in debt even before the hurricane hit.

In singling out Mick Mulvaney, his budget director, Mr. Trump said, “I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you’ve thrown our budget a little out of whack.” Looking around the room for his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, who was standing in the back, Mr. Trump said, “Boy, is he watching.”