Hurricanes Irma and Maria have both devastated Puerto Rico very recently. Even 12 days after hurricane Maria hit, only 5% of the island has power and the schools are still closed. On top of that, the reopening of schools in Puerto Rico seems very far off based on the progress so far. Julia Kelleher, Puerto Rico's secretary of education, told CNN, 'some public schools might not resume classes until October 16 because of storm damage.' Also, only 400 of 1,113 schools have been assessed for damage so far. Much of Puerto Rico is left without clean water and the island is full of rubble of building which have fallen down. Spirits are low on the island and many people there are in desperate need of aid.
This widespread damage is very severe and is taking a lot of time and resources to be assessed, and although America has no obligation to help Puerto Rico, Trump was receiving criticism for not helping Puerto Rico in their time of need. Although he could have just ignored the criticism or waited to make an official statement, President Trump instead took to twitter to vent about the criticism of his lack of aid sent to Puerto Rico and to criticize Puerto Rico for not trying hard enough to help themselves. He wrote reactionary tweets attacking other leaders that he should not be fighting with.
In total, 18 tweets were posted by Donald Trump over 11 hours all pertaining Puerto Rico and were all 'Negative, defensive and dark' according to Chris Cillizza of CNN. One tweet said, '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.' and the others were in the same tone.
Overall, this is just a continuation of the long-running realization of Americans that the President needs to get off of twitter and start being more professional, especially when talking about such sad, serious issues.
However, seeing as Trump is planning to visit Puerto Rico and seems to be in the process of getting more aid sent their way, maybe his tweets were not conveying his true emotions and he was speaking out of anger when all along he was planning to help people in need. Overall, he should stop trying to play games and distract from the real issues because it makes him look suspicious and untrustworthy.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/01/us/puerto-rico-schools-closed-for-weeks/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/01/politics/trump-tweets-puerto-rico/index.html
