Former President Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday that no president has “done more for Puerto Rico than I have.”
The comment came on the heels of Trump’s widely criticized rally at Madison Square Garden over the weekend, during which Trump espoused xenophobic and anti-immigrant rhetoric and the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe described Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”
The former president’s remarks on Tuesday were made during a community roundtable in Pennsylvania that also featured former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and former New York Representative Lee Zeldin.
Zeldin said one of the participants at the roundtable, Dr. Maribel Valdez, was born in Puerto Rico and later came to the United States. Valdez expressed strong support for Trump, telling the former president, “I want you to know that Puerto Rico stands behind you, and Puerto Rico loves you.”
“Well, we love it,” Trump said as the audience cheered. “I know it really well, and we helped you through a lot of bad storms. I’ll tell you, we had some really bad ones.”
He added: “But I think no president’s done more for Puerto Rico than I have, so thank you, that’s really nice of you to say. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.”
President Donald Trump tosses paper towels into a crowd at Calvary Chapel in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, Oct. 3, 2017.
AP/Evan Vucci
Trump’s comments on Tuesday weren’t the first time he touted his purported support for Puerto Rico. He also boasted in 2019 that he had taken “better care of Puerto Rico than any man ever.”
That comment came after it was reported that Trump had privately told Republican lawmakers that the island, which was hit by two hurricanes in 2017, was getting too much disaster aid.
When Trump visited Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in October 2017, he was widely criticized for tossing rolls of paper towels into a crowd of locals.
Carmen Yulin Cruz, then the mayor of San Juan, derided Trump’s televised meeting with Puerto Rican officials as a PR stunt, adding that seeing him throwing paper towels into the crowd was “terrible and abominable.”
Trump is set to hold a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday evening, which has one of the largest Puerto Rican populations in the state.
Matt Tuerk, the mayor of Allentown, told Fox News earlier in the day that “the majority of our Latino population has its roots in Puerto Rico, so people heard the campaign saying some terrible things about a place that is near and dear to our hearts.”
“I think that might push people who might have been sitting on the couch out to vote for Vice President Harris,” Tuerk added.
