Donald Trump has disputed the official death toll of Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico in 2017.
A George Washington University study in July found that 2,975 people died in Puerto Rico as a result of Hurricane Maria in September 2017. The figure has been accepted by the Governor of Puerto Rico.
However, Donald Trump, has taken to Twitter to dispute this estimate, claiming that after the storm hit, the death toll was somewhere between six and 18.
Earlier this year, an independent report by Harvard University estimated that the death toll was even higher — reporting it to be roughly 4,600.
After the hurricane, the island faced huge electrical outages and lack of access to fundamental infrastructure such as health care and clean water — meaning that many people died indirectly as a result of the natural disaster.
In two tweets posted on Thursday, Trump wrote: “3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000…
“This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!”
3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
…..This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar confirmed on Thursday that Trump’s proposed visit to Ireland in November had been called off.
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