Alex Cora is among the many people who were bothered by Donald Trump’s comments about Puerto Rico.
Early Thursday, President Trump sent some tweets about the death toll in the aftermath of the destruction caused by Hurricane Maria last year. Trump disputed the death tolls and said the reported numbers were being used as a political tool against him.
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
Apart from the death toll, Trump was criticized for his lack of empathy shown towards Puerto Rico amid the disaster. All of that bothers Cora, who is from Puerto Rico and lives there in the offseason.
The Red Sox manager said Puerto Rico needed help and received it — including assistance from the United States government — but he’s not sure if it was enough. Worse though, he feels, is the way Trump has used the deaths as a political tool.
“We will never know how many, how many we lost. I hate that people that make it a political issue. This is about human beings. …
“To be tweeting about 3,000 people and be efficient, it’s actually disrespectful for my country. We see it that way. I know probably he doesn’t feel that way. And like I said, hey man, thank you for helping us. He went down there, he did what he did. I hate talking about politics and all that, but I think this is more than politics,” Cora said via NBC Sports’ Evan Drellich.
Cora said that while he respects Trump, he does not agree with a lot of the things the president says about Puerto Rico. You can read his full comments on the matter here.
