Over the weekend the mainstream media and left-wing politicians in the United States threw a fit over President Trump’s tough words to San Juan, Puerto Rico Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz after her slanderous criticism of Trump’s response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria.
“We are dying here,” Mayor Cruz began in a press conference Saturday morning on September 30, 2017. “I will do what I never thought I was going to do: I am begging. I am begging anyone that can hear us to save us from dying,” Cruz pleaded. “If anybody out there is listening to us, we are dying.” Directed to President Trump, Cruz brazenly stated, “You are killing us with the inefficiency and bureaucracy,” further adding, “and if we don’t get the food and the water into people’s hands, what we are going to see is something close to a genocide.” The mayor shameless concluded:
So, Mr Trump, I am begging you to take charge and save lives. After all, that is one of the founding principles of the United States of America. If not, the world will see how we are treated not as second-class citizens but as animals that can be disposed of. Enough is enough. [Emphasis added.]
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In response to Cruz’s evisceration of Trump’s relief efforts, the president made a series of tweets, scolding the mayor:
The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump.
… Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help. They….
… want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort. 10,000 Federal workers now on Island doing a fantastic job.
Rather than holding the fire to Mayor Cruz’s feet for her inflammatory remarks, the media and elected liberal Democratic officials across the U.S. mainland quickly chastised Trump’s tweets.
Jim Acosta of CNN, a network that President Trump has dubbed as “fake news,” tweeted on Saturday, “Why is the WH attacking the American people of Puerto Rico?”
CNN political analyst Julian Zelizer’s lengthy op-ed about Trump’s tweets dubbed them a “presidential wrecking ball.” Zelizer further stated, “With residents of Puerto Rico struggling to survive a humanitarian disaster, the President sent out a barrage of hate-filled tweets, invoking racial stereotypes and fueling division in the body politic.”
On Sunday, the Daily Beast published an op-ed by Joy-Ann Reid entitled “There He Goes Again: Trump’s Demented, Racist Saturday Morning Puerto Rico Tweetstorm,” in which she said, “Not surprisingly, Trump’s attacks on Yulin Cruz echoed those of his most vile supporters from the white nationalist fever swamps…”
Coming to Mayor Cruz’s defense, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted, “I just got off the phone with Mayor @CarmenYulinCruz. I told her to keep up her heroic work & leadership on behalf of Puerto Rico.”
Senator Warren didn’t stop there. In a following tweet, the Massachusetts progressive added, “The definition of ‘poor leadership’ is sitting at your golf club while millions of US citizens beg for your help, @realDonaldTrump.”
Who Is Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz?
Despite both the media and the Left’s adulation of Mayor Cruz, what do we know about her? Who exactly is she? And does she merit such unwavering support?
Before becoming mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico’s capital and largest city, in 2012, Cruz was a one-term (four years) member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives. She was elected under the Partido Popular Democrático (PPD), or Popular Democratic Party, one of Puerto Rico’s main two political parties.
Cruz’s PPD is a socially liberal and anti-statehood party that is nationally affiliated with the Democratic Party. In 2012, with the slogan “A San Juan for All” and a coalition of San Juan’s LGBT community, immigrants from the neighboring Dominican Republic, and city cab drivers, Cruz defeated the incumbent two-term Mayor Jorge Santini of the conservative New Progressive Party.
As reported by the Spanish-language television channel Telemundo 51 of Miami, Florida, in 2015, Cruz went to Communist Cuba for her first vacation in 12 years. This visit was prior to the death of Communist Party dictator Fidel Castro. Although her trip was for leisure, not a state visit in an official capacity, she said, “I am mayor in San Juan, I am the mayor of San Juan when I go to New York and I will be the mayor of San Juan when I visit Cuba.”
In addition to criticizing the Trump administration’s response to the devastion caused by Hurricane Maria, Mayor Cruz has also praised the government of Venezuela for its aid. The Cuban-satellite Marxist government of Venezuela, under the oppressive control of Nicolas Madura, leader of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), and who also enjoys the loyal backing of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), offered to send gasoline to Puerto Rico via San Juan.
Cruz said,“I just received a call from Venezuela that using the elimination of cabotage laws [Jones Act of 1920] for the next few days, they will bring gas to San Juan and we will have to share it with the rest of the island.”
Ironically, but unsurprisingly, for Venezuela, while it promises to send gasoline to San Juan, Puerto Rico, it has none to give for its own Venezuelan people, as is common with failed Soviet-style command economics.
As for Mayor Cruz, one should let it sink in that she condemned President Trump, who sent far more and greater aid than Venezuela.
Meanwhile, Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló has commended the Trump administration.
Puerto Rico Politics
During a phone interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, Governor Rosselló said of President Trump’s efforts, “I have to say that the administration has responded to our petitions. FEMA, Brock Long, has been on the phone virtually all the time with me, checking out how things are going.” Governor Rosselló has both continually and publicly thanked President Trump for his assistance and responding to any requests.
On Monday, October 2, 2017, Governor Rosselló said of the president’s upcoming visit to the island, “President Trump’s visit represents a commitment to Puerto Rico and the opportunity to present our reality after the pass of [Hurricane] Maria.”
Rosselló’s gratitude to the president and hands-on leadership is a far cry from Mayor Cruz’s divisive and unconstructive remarks. In addition to her accusations of the president allowing genocide on Puerto Rico, Mayor Cruz was wearing a black t-shirt with the words “Help Us We Are Dying” in a bold white font along with a matching black baseball cap with the letters S.O.S. embroidered on it.
Former three-term mayor of San Juan Jorge Santini took to Facebook and Twitter blasting Mayor Cruz, saying, “While many Sanjuaneros do not have help, the mayor Carmen Yulín takes time to make t-shirts and go on a ‘media tour’ with a libretto.” On Facebook, former Mayor Santini also added the following hashtags: #PuroTeatro #LaConocemos #PóngaseATrabajar (Spanish for #PureTheatrics #WeKnowHer #GetToWork).
On Monday, October 2, 2017, former Mayor Santini again took to Facebook, saying about Mayor Cruz, “It is unacceptable that while there is so much debris in San Juan and people without food, Mayor Yulín Carmen is found in other municipalities.” In other words, she should be at her post, focusing on rebuilding her city and helping the people of San Juan.
It should be noted that Cruz is a political opponent of both Governor Rosselló and former Mayor Santini. Whereas Cruz belongs to the liberal Popular Democratic Party, Rosselló and Santini are both members of the island’s Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP), or New Progressive Party. Despite its name, the New Progressive Party is fiscally conservative, pro-statehood, and is predominantly nationally affiliated with the Republican Party. The conservative PNP holds the majority of the seats in both the Puerto Rico House of Representatives and Senate.
Despite the PNP’s affiliation with the mainland Republican Party, then-gubernatorial candidate Rosselló endorsed former Secretary Hillary Clinton for president. Mayor Cruz also endorsed Hillary, but she opposed Rosselló for governor, instead endorsing her party’s liberal candidate for governor, David Bernier. Also, whereas Rosselló endorsed the Republican candidate for the island’s resident commissioner (non-voting representative to Congress) Jennifer González, Cruz on the other hand and expectedly so supported liberal Democratic/ PPD candidate Héctor Ferrer.
Following the election victories of both Republicans González and Trump, Governor-elect Rosselló congratulated the two and said he expected the new president to follow through on the Republican Party’s platform for Puerto Rico. “If one gets to see what is the platform of the Republican Party in terms of what is Puerto Rico, it is very favorable,” Rosselló said, according to Telemundo’s Puerto Rico affiliate.
However, for Puerto Rico now is not the time for politics. And Governor Rosselló, unlike Mayor Cruz, has risen above the party labels to work with the Trump administration and genuinely thank him for his relief efforts.
Whereas the mainstream media and radical Left could not find a voice in Governor Rosselló to portray President Trump as a heartless racist, sadly Mayor Cruz has willingly taken that mantle. She is not represenative of the Puerto Rican people as a whole, but of those with an agenda to slader the president while making a name for herself.
And anyone who comes to her defense is playing right into her hand of creating a spirit of division and dissension at the worst possible time. One should not be fooled by her politically charged emotional rants; it is beneath the office of mayor of San Juan and is unbecoming of any elected official during a time of crisis.
President Trump is expected to visit Puerto Rico on Tuesday, September 3, followed by a scheduled visit by Vice President Mike Pence on Friday, September 6.
Image: Thief12
