“It’s shameful, the way we treated Puerto Rico and the islands,” Biden said to an audience of several hundred people gathered in a union hall. “I’m not even sure people in the president’s administration knew Puerto Ricans are all citizens.”
“I’m not joking,” Biden continued. “And so there’s this notion of somehow, why should we have to make and invest that kind of money in dealing with what is a genuine existential crisis?”
House lawmakers on Monday passed a $19.1 billion disaster relief bill that includes hundreds of millions of dollars in community development grants and nutrition assistance to Puerto Rico and other islands hit by Maria in September 2017. It now awaits Trump’s signature. The president has bristled at the extra aid for Puerto Rico, called officials there “grossly incompetent” and accused them of misusing previously allocated hurricane relief funding.
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