Trump To Seek Additional $10-$15 Billion In Disaster Funds Amid Puerto Rico Fallout

Following a disagreement with San Juan mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz that seemingly turned into a full-blown political feud over the weekend, Politico is now reporting that the Trump administration will seek an incremental $10-$15 billion in disaster relief funding to help with recovery efforts in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico.

The Trump administration will ask Congress to approve another between $10 billion and $15 billion for the FEMA disaster relief fund this week, according to sources with knowledge of the request. We hear the magic number will be $13 billion. This is meant to begin to cover the cost of the spate of recent natural disasters, including the storm in Puerto Rico.

For those who may have missed the chaos, Trump"s feud with Cruz escalated on Friday after the mayor took to the airwaves to make an emotional plea for help...a plea that was interpreted by the Trump administration to be nothing more than a cleverly planned political stunt to exploit the ongoing crisis in Puerto Rico.  Per Politico:

It was a direct response to her emotional news conference Friday night, in which she begged the president for more help. “We are dying here,” Cruz said, slamming down two thick binders of documentation that San Juan had provided to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to obtain help.

In another world, Cruz’s frustration with the layers of bureaucracy standing between her wiped-out city and food and water delivery might have been in line with Trump’s own interest in cutting regulations and red tape.

The props she used were similar to charts Trump has wielded at news conferences to demonstrate how obtuse the country’s permitting and regulatory process can be. But Cruz’s plea was interpreted by Trump as a personal insult.

“I am asking the president of the United States to make sure somebody is in charge, that is up to the task of saving lives,” she said. “If anybody out there is listening to us, we are dying, and you are killing us with the inefficiency.”

Meanwhile, and to absolutely no one"s surprise, the Mayor"s comments drew a very quick response from the President in the form of an aggressive tweetstorm in which he attributed the disappointing Puerto Rico relief effort to the "poor leadership ability" of Cruz.   

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.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2017

...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....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2017

...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.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2017

Of course, regardless of whether Cruz"s intentions were genuine or just an effort to score political points for an upcoming bid for the governor"s seat, Trump"s assault has helped her accomplish both with the mainstream media now fully behind her. 

In fact, as we pointed out just last night, Former Puerto Rico Attorney General Jose Fuentes became the latest victim of CNN"s "technical difficulties" when he went on air to make the point that Cruz"s attacks were politically motivated.

Donald Trump"s feud with San Juan mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz got an unexpected reinforcement today, when Former Puerto Rico Attorney General Jose Fuentes, a Republican, on Sunday took aim at Cruz, accusing her of attacking President Trump and using hurricane relief efforts to lay the groundwork for a gubernatorial bid.

Speaking on CNN"s "New Day", Fuentes accused Cruz of making an about-face, saying she supported Trump just a few days ago, until her political adviser suggested the idea of running for governor.

"The mayor of San Juan is a political hack," Fuentes said. "She was singing the praises of the president until her political adviser, [Rep.] Luis Gutiérrez from Chicago, got there and brought her the t-shirts and said, "Hey you want to run for governor, if she wants to run..." at which point the CNN anchor cut him off, pointing to audio issues, and claiming he could no longer hear Fuentes, handing over the mic  to CNN"s Democratic Political Commentator Maria Cardona, who unleashed a scathing critique before somehow audio returned at which point Fuentes was once again given the platform, when he again repeated that any logistical problems were the result of political posturing by the San Juan mayor at which point both the CNN anchor and and Cardona doubled down their attack, and so on.

Watch CNN"s anchor shut down Fuentes 2 mins 38 seconds into the clip below.

Meanwhile, with President Trump scheduled to travel to Puerto Rico tomorrow, we"re sure this fireworks show is far from over.

“We Can’t Wait for Government.” Pop Star Daddy Yankee Saves Puerto Rican Food Bank and Delivers Aid

Via The Daily Bell

Puerto Rican authorities are blaming the White House for not properly responding to the disaster caused by Hurricane Maria. Trump, in turn, tweeted that about the poor leadership within Puerto Rico and claimed the politicians were just trying to score political points.

There have been unverified reports that officials in Puerto Rico were, in fact, holding back supplies unless there were accompanying photo opportunities.

And among all the pointing fingers and he said she said, the people of Puerto Rico are getting at least some aid.

That is because while governments fight, obstruct, and grandstand to advance their political careers, real people help.

Puerto Rican native and pop star Daddy Yankee delivered what FEMA, and the government of Puerto Rico could not. He gave $100,000 in assistance to feed the people whose homes were destroyed, who were left without power or water after the hurricane struck over a week ago.

The money provided food to roughly 9,000 families in Toa Baja, an impoverished town of 80,000 people near Puerto Rico’s capital, San Juan…

Each family on Saturday received 59 pounds of food, not including rations of water too. The box of food included rice, pasta, tuna, beans, beef and milk. Food Bank officials say it’s enough to feed a family of four for a week.

But the pop-star didn’t stop there. While he was touring the food bank, the director mentioned how she was desperate for diesel fuel to run the generators. She had only enough to provide electricity to the building for two more hours. Without power, 25,000 pounds of food stored in the freezers of food bank would have been at risk of going to waste.

So Daddy Yankee’s entourage made some phone calls and delivered 200 gallons of fuel, enough diesel to run the generators for another week.

“We got the diesel! We got the diesel!” the pop star proclaimed at the Food Bank. “We can’t wait for the government.”

Maybe it was the bureaucracy of government, or maybe it was their political positioning. Maybe it was government’s typical incompetence and lack of preparations. But the government failed to deliver help to the people they claim to keep safe. Disasters like these are government’s time to shine. This is why the government is so vital, they tell us.

And yet reports run rampant of corruption of local officials, and the refusal of local police to protect people from looters and robbers.

The governments of Puerto Rico, San Juan, and the United States all proved ineffective in delivering the most basic necessities to the people affected by the disaster. And time after time we see that people who put their trust in government, people who depend on authorities as their backup plan, are let down.

In this instance, people were simply lucky that someone rich enough cared enough to do something to save them.

But the best advice is still to be prepared yourself for the most likely disasters. Do a little prepping for unfortunate circumstances which might befall you and your family. Cash, protection, and of course food and water should be on hand to last you at least a week, or significantly longer if properly rationed.

Muni Massacre - Puerto Rico Bonds Plunge Near Record Lows

The last 5 days have seen the biggest crash in Puerto Rico muni bonds since June 2015 when the Governor declared debts "unpayable." As Bloomberg notes, investor speculation about the scale of the losses Puerto Rico will foist on bondholders caused the price of the island’s most active bond to continue to slide in the heaviest trading in nearly four months.

As Bloomberg detailed previously, the Puerto Rico fiscal recovery plan that was approved by the island’s federal overseers isn’t good news for investors holding its $70 billion of debt. The proposal, which was redrawn by Governor Ricardo Rossello to address concern that he was relying on overly optimistic forecasts, would leave less than $7 billion for debt-service costs from 2018 through 2026, according to figures included in the most recently released proposal.

That’s less than a quarter of what’s coming due and nearly $4 billion less than in Rossello’s initial proposal last month, which the board said didn’t do enough to steady the territory’s finances.

John Oliver explained the PR disaster a year ago...it"s only got worse.