Donald Trump’s bizarre paper towel incident in Puerto Rico
Donald Trump had already so thoroughly screwed up his response to the post-hurricane Puerto Rico crisis that the only way he could have made it even worse is if he’d visited the island, complained about the Puerto Rican people to their face, and glibly thrown rolls of paper towels into the audience. So naturally, that’s precisely what Trump did today.
Trump had spent the weekend viciously attacking the Mayor of San Juan, while accusing Puerto Ricans of being lazy ingrates. That meant his cursory visit to the island today to survey the damage was going to be awkward no matter how he behaved. The trouble: he didn’t behave. At one point he complained to the Puerto Ricans in the audience that helping them would screw up his federal budget for the year. This was not what the people down there were hoping to hear – particularly as their suffering was made worse than necessary, thanks to Trump’s lack of an initial relief response. But that’s okay, because he brought paper towels with him. No, really.
At the end of his whiny and insulting speech, Donald Trump began handing out rolls of paper towels to those who were near the front of the audience. Then he began tossing the rolls deep into the audience, like a mascot throwing t-shirts into the crowd at a sports event. Was this supposed to be funny? It’s as if he were trying to say “Sorry I left you to drown in flood water by failing to do my job as President of the United States, for all I care you can mop up your flood water with paper towels,” but wanted to use props instead of simply saying it. Here’s video of Trump throwing the paper towels (link):
Oh and by the way, he was speaking in a church when he was throwing the paper towels. So there you have it: Donald Trump has gone and found a way to make the Puerto Rico situation even worse than he’d already made it. He’s finding ways to embarrass the United States that no one thought possible. Perhaps he can work as the paper towel distributor when he gets to prison.
