'Trump has claimed that nearly 3,000 people did not die in Puerto Rico due to the impact of Hurricane Maria, despite the island’s government putting the official death toll at up to 2,975.
The president wrote on Twitter that Democrats inflated the death toll to make him “look as bad as possible” in the wake of criticism over his handling of the response to the disaster.
The official toll had been given as 64, before the release of findings from researchers from George Washington University that lifted the total dramatically in a study commissioned by the US commonwealth’s government. While that number is an estimate, which could rise or fall, it is clear that the number of people killed is far in excess of the “6 to 18 deaths” Mr Trump claimed when he left the island having visited.
“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,” the president tweeted. ”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...”
“.....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,” the president continued. “If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics.”'
Read more: Trump says official Puerto Rico hurricane death toll of 3,000 was made up by Democrats 'to make me look bad'
