Fuel. After the island of devastated by Hurricane Maria more than a week ago. Trumps response has been criticized as slow, inadequate and insensitive. On friday the Washington Post reported on how trumps time at his golf course last weekend contributed to the delays. This morning the White House Press secretary called that story false. The mayor of san juan added this on friday. If anybody out there is listening to us, we are dying. And you are killing us with the inefficiency. And the bureaucracy. So, mr. Trump, i beg you to take charge and save lives. If not the world will see how we are treated not as second class citizens, but as animals that can be disposed of. After that desperate plea for help donald trump responded early this morning by attacking her on twitter. The mayor of san juan, Carmen Yulin Cruz joins me now. Mayor, before we get to donald trump. First tell me about the state of san juan and how things are going, your plea yesterday to the world moved so many people and i think the first thing people want to hear are things a little bit better this morning, how is everything going . Well, we got a big donation yesterday from goya, 200,000 pounds of food. All together from private donations. They keep coming after yesterday. We already have on site about 400,000 pounds of food and rather than getting one container of water and one container of food we got from fema we got around six of them. So we are glad today at 11 00 the production line of aid is going to begin and we will be able to put out a quantity of help for people. Ate good day. Ate good start. Its a good dawn. Were moving ahead. Thats what its all about. All about saving lives. Not about politics. Not about petty comments. Its about moving forward, putting boots on the ground and saving lives. Speaking of petty comments president of the United States woke up early this morning with you on his mind. Ill read a couple of things he tweeted. The mayor of san juan he says referring to you who was very complementary a few days ago has been told by the democrats you must be nasty to trump. Did anyone tell you to go out yesterday and to name donald trump as you were making your pleas for help . Actually, i was asking for help. I wasnt saying anything nasty about the president. But dont take my word for it. General buchanan, a three star general has said as one of the first comments hes made about the puerto rico situation that he doesnt have enough troops and he doesnt have enough equipment of what he needs to get the situation under control. So, who am i . Im just a little mayor from the capital city of san juan. This is a three star general telling the world right now he does not have the appropriate means and tools to take care of the situation. This is what we have, one goal. It is to save lives. I tweeted this morning that this is a time when everyone shows their true colors. I have no time for distractions. All i have is time for people to move forward, get help and what kind of a puerto rican, what kind of a human would i be if i know of other mayors that are getting no water and no food and i just look the other way and just had my city taken care of. So i will continue to do whatever i have to do, say whatever i have to say, compliment the people i need to compliment and call out the people i need to call out. This isnt about me. This isnt about anyone. This is about lives that are being lost. If things do not get done properly real quickly. And, you know, not only did the president of the u. N. , its such an important point because youre trying to work for the betterment of your city. The president of the u. N. Not only attacked you but attacked it seems like Puerto Ricans in general. He tweeted such poor leadership ability by the mayor of san juan and others in puerto rico who are not able to get their workers to help. They want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort. 10,000 federal workers now on the island doing a fantastic job. That implication is that the people of puerto rico are essentially too lazy to do it themselves and want the federal government to do everything for them. What do you make of that attack . You just have to walk around the streets and see people coming together to help in the cleaning, all this Community Kitchens that are coming out. People coming from Different Countries to help and to help in the communities. What are we going to do . Were using the leadership of our communities to help. We have 6,300 employees of the municipality of san juan. Onethird of them lost their homes and everything. The rest of them have been working not because of maria but remember because of irma. We have been at this since august 31st nonstop, 20 hour shifts. I want to be thankful to the mayor of chicago, of new york, of miami beach, newton, massachusetts, columbus, ohio, all willing to help. Mayors are the first line of defense for citizens. We help them, round them up. And really if youre a good mayor you follow your people. Thats what we have been doing. So, again, i can say this to you with a smile. I am not going to be distracted by small comments, by politics, by petty issues. This is one goal and its so save lives. Thats all that matters. And whom ever is here to help, whom ever says things that can help, will be praised. Whoever doesnt will not. And, again, three star general saying we dont have enough. So its not only me. I believe we have some echos out there. The uss comfort is on its way. Trump now saying that on tuesday he and Melania Trump will come to puerto rico. Do you want to see him and if he comes to puerto rico would you meet with him . I will meet with anyone that comes to our city because we respect the democratic choices that people make all around the world. So if mr. Trump wants to see me, i would be very glad to meet with him. But, again, this is about saving lives. What i would really like him to do, is not just have a helicopter ride over to survey areas, just to go out into the towns where people are drinking out of creeks, or the towns where all the cows and the dead people are together. Or those towns where theres no medicine. And hear from the people of puerto rico. And see their passion for life, see what we are doing to get back on track, and listen to their hearts. One can visit as a photo op or visit to make sure things get done the right way. Im hopeful. Again hes the president of the United States. I afford him the same respect that i afford the leader of every other nation in the world that was democratically elected. One would think that ought to be reciprocal. Yeah. My fight would be just one, im fighting to save lives. Thats it. This isnt personal. Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, thank you very much for being here. Thank you very much for the opportunity. Now i want to bring in congresswoman, the representative for the Virgin Islands which is struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria. You heard or seen the president of the United States is attacking the mayor of san juan as shes struggling to help her people recover from Hurricane Maria. The u. S. Virgin islands was hit with a double whammy, irma and then maria. Is recovery going any better on the Virgin Islands than puerto rico. I have grave concerns about the recovery thats happening in the u. S. Virgin islands at this time. As you said, we were hit first by irma on st. Thomas and st. John and then maria on st. Cr x croix, both of those category 5 at the time they struck our islands. Ive been down there for the last week, visiting with people. Being out in the grassroots where everyone is, and i have some real concerns as well. We lost both of our hospitals. We are operating with one emergency room. We have medevaced all of the inpatients off of the islands to the mainland. I have yet to see on the ground discussions about how a real hospital is going to be put in play. There are discussions about an operating room in a box. Thats not going suffice for what the people of Virgin Islands need. There have been Distribution Centers set up and thats fine for people who live close to those Distribution Centers or who can drive there but that doesnt help those individuals, our elderly and others who are in communities that cannot get there. I talked to people who didnt have water, have not had water for a week. This is untenable. I made my voice heard to the federal government, and i have real concerns. Thats why Elijah Cummings and myself wrote a letter to gowdy asking for an emergency hearing to discuss puerto rico and Virgin Islands where there are real concerns about this recovery effort. The administration, particularly the president of the United States seems to be primarily concerned with getting good headlines instead of demanding good headlines for the Recovery Efforts in the u. S. Virgin islands as well as puerto rico. Have you begun to focus more on members of congress as you just mentioned have you given up on trying to get the white house to pay attention. Right now, the federal government is on the ground in the Virgin Islands but i believe that theres a real disconnect between what the federal government and fema have been told, that are the issues with the people of the Virgin Islands and what the grassroots and what the actual individuals residents are needing. For example, the army corps was happy to tell me that they were able to get the Potable Water up. Po most people in the Virgin Islands their homes are not powered by city water or water coming from a municipality. They are collected from rainwater and we have cisterns. The epa is not doing any testing in those homes. Thats the kind of issue where theres a real disconnect. We hear headlines about whats happening in puerto rico. I cant tell you the low morale that the people of Virgin Islands have right now about how the federal government and the rest of americans feel about them because we hear nothing, nothing about the people of the u. S. Virgin islands. You know, theres questions in peoples minds maybe its because puerto rico has 3 million and were a much smaller island. Unfortunately some of us are beginning to think maybe its because the u. S. Virgin islands is primarily black territory, that were not hearing anything in the news. Theres no discussion about us. The president is going to be visiting puerto rico and we were struck well before puerto rico and we have yet to see that level of interest on the ground in the u. S. Virgin islands. Ill say the tweet this morning and the tweet storm did include he plans to visit the u. S. Virgin islands as well as puerto rico. Well see if that comments to pass. Go on. I was going say he plans on visiting us. Puerto rico was hit by maria head on and its devastating there. But we were hit a week before by a category 5, and weve yet to see that happen. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. We welcome the opportunity to have you on and to keep the u. S. Virgin islands in the headlines as well. Coming up, my panel weighs in on trumps Early Morning attack on the mayor of san juan and the recovery effort that is under way and a lot of people think not going so well. Thats next. When heartburn hits, fight back fast with tums smoothies. It starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue. And neutralizes stomach acid at the source. Tum tum tum tum smoothies only from tums ultimately the government of puerto rico will have to work with us to determine how this massive rebuilding effort will end up being one of the biggest ever, will be funded and organized. And what we will do with the tremendous amount of existing debt already on the island. Well just like pretty much every saturday morning donald trump took to twitter to air his grievances today. This time he targeted Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of san juan whose been begging the federal government for aid, to aid in the relief of the u. S. Territory of puerto rico where american citizens are at risk and short skrhortages food, wat and fuel. Joining me the first puerto rican and latina to hold a post in new york. Councilwoman, just to get your response to the tweet storm attack on the mayor of san juan by the president of United States. Its disgusting. This individual cannot separate himself or even, you know, bring, be empathetic of a situation thats catastrophic and any delay in getting the attention and resources on the ground are deaths attributed to him and lack of response. The reality is fema and federal government of not prepared despite the fact it was wellknown this was going to happen. That has to be accepted and has to be recognized. Secondly theres still not to this day not enough personnel on the ground when you compare the response to other emergencies to irma in florida and when you talk about harvey and texas. Theres only 10,000 between troops and relief workers and thats not acceptable. We need 30,000, 40,000, the Lieutenant General retired who headed the katrina effort said he would have 50,000 troops on the ground in addition to any relief workers. 3. 5 Million People thats 100 miles by 300 miles with rugged terrain, hard to reach areas. There needs to be a sense of urgency and for him to be in this could coko cocoon of his g is despicable. There was a tweet this morning donald trump is lying about puerto rico and on his golf course, which he is. There are reports thats played into it. What do you make of trump adding to the attack essentially saying the people of puerto rico want everything done for them by the federal government, implying these american citizens are just too lazy to do it themselves. Again, its atrocious, right. So the idea that this is not a conversation that he was having, again, when it comes to texas or florida, right. Hes just lumping Puerto Ricans into that narrative that hes built of antiimmigrant, right. That they are not contributing positively. That they are a drain on society. Nothing positive comes from the contributions. Meanwhile puerto rico has disproportionately served in the armed forces of this country, have given of themselves despite the fact we are second class citizens because we dont get to vote for president or have an elected representative in congress. So theres this real unfortunate reality that we live as a colony. Were a colony. Now its being turned and manifested in the policies and how were being treated. Everyone has to speak up against that. I thank the leadership of the san juan mayor. I think shes speaking truth to power. We need that sense of urgency. What weve seen on the ground and the reality that these american citizens are living is definitely something thats just not thats not acceptable and we have to raise our voices. Congressman, thats a very important point this point of colony. These two territories, u. S. Virgin islands and puerto rico, these are not immigrants, they are americans. The United States holds these territories, makes all the rules for these territories between the jones act and Everything Else. And yet when the citizens who live on these american territories, who, again, dont have full voting reits, dont get to vote for the president unless they make it to the mainland ask for the minimum, they are being termed essentially i dont know takers by the president of the United States. As a member of congress, what is your response to what the president has done . Well, imm irritated i knw theres a big ocean. Big, big water. Big water. Yes. I know thats a major problem for the most powerful nation on the planet. But, look, i was mayor of the largest city in the state of missouri. We have two 500 year floods during my term as mayor. I had to constantly ask myself, you know, am i helping to solve the problem or am i a contributor. At this point donald trump is not asking himself any questions, hes trying to figure out a way to do a dog whistle. Of all the things he said about this, about the mayor and about Everything Else thats going on in puerto rico, i resent most this suggestion, this dog whistle about people too lazy to help themselves. He didnt use the word lazy but i know theres a portion of the base that can accept his words, oh, yeah they are not doing anything to help themselves. One of the reasons, obviously they cant even move around. They dont have any communications equipment. And i dont think this is the time to talk about the debt that puerto rico has. This is a time to help them. Im really worried. The president has a bad manners problem, and bad manners are like bad teeth. Nobody knows you have them until you open your mouth or get out your twelve and start tweeting. To the point about his base. One of his big supporters was ahead of donald trump last night tweeting attacking the mayor in even more vile terms calling her garbage and a murderer, saying she failed her people and her duties. She belongs in prison. That preceded Donald Trumps who picked up on that same thing. Pam, you are running for congress in a district that could wind up being the recep enof an influx of people who will come to the mainland from puerto rico and Virgin Islands where they will have the right to vote for president. What do you make of these attacks on people who are american citizens and could wine up being your constituents. First of all as a former naval officer i have to point out this is one of the greatest dereliction of duty and failure of leadership in my life. Never in my life have i seen a leader stan up and say things are going badly so i can look bad. The problem is he sent inadequate troops and supplies. He demonstrated that he just didnt care. And then to say well because things are going badly they must be doing that t