Trump budget chief says Puerto Rico's doing great as island loses power

Budget director Mick Mulvaney bragged about the administration’s response to Hurricane Maria just as an island-wide blackout hit Puerto Rico.

During a House Appropriations Committee hearing, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) pressed Mulvaney about his support for the deficit-exploding tax scam. While serving in Congress, Mulvaney demanded offsets for disaster relief.

Lowey asked if tax cuts were more important to him than disaster relief. Instead of answering directly, he responded by boasting about the government’s response to the devastation in Puerto Rico.

“96 percent of customers have power now,” Mulvaney said. “Keep in mind, more people have power now, in Puerto Rico, than before the storm.”

And he insisted that the administration was “making an exception” for Puerto Rico by ensuring that “they’re going to be better off” than they were before the storm.

“So I think we can make the argument that we’re treating them better than we treated folks who were in New York and New Jersey during Superstorm Sandy,” Mulvaney said.

But even as Mulvaney spoke, the entire island lost power, less than a week after another massive blackout.

Mulvaney was citing congressional testimony that power had been restored to 96 percent of Puerto Rico. But according to the Energy Information Administration, that’s the same percentage that had power before the storm, with a difference of only a few thousand customers.

After nearly seven months, that’s nothing to brag about.

Trump’s response to Hurricane Maria was a rolling disaster. He repeatedly attacked the people of Puerto Rico while they were suffering. His neglect led to the longest blackout in American history.

In fact, with more than 3.4 billion hours of electricity lost, it became the second-largest blackout in world history.

Mulvaney’s claims made it clear that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And it’s also apparent that the administration still doesn’t care about what’s happening to Puerto Rico.