and insisting the trip is the earliest he could go. reporter: president trump laying the ground work to visit puerto rico early next week. everyone has said it s amazing of the work we have done in puerto rico. i m proud of it. i m going on tuesday. reporter: home to 3.4 million people. and entirely without power. as we speak, fema, our great first responders, and all available federal resources, including the military, are being marshalled to save lives, protect families, and begin a long and very, very difficult restoration process. reporter: today trump pointed to the heavily indebted islands existing infrastructure challenges saying that has inhibited re leaf efforts the infrastructure was in bad shape
both have been devastated, and i mean absolutely devastated, by hurricane maria and we re doing everything in our power to then hard hit people of both places. puerto rico and the virgin islands. a massive effort is underway and we have been rae treated very, very nicely by the governor and by everybody else. they know how hard we re working and what a good job we re working. fema, our great first responders, including the military are being marshalled to save lives of the protect families and begin a long and very, very difficult restoration process. i have directed all response agencies to assist in the recovery effort. as the governor justed me this morning, the entire federal work
it s the federal government s own red tape, own regulations that might be slowing down relief efforts. president trump laying the grounds to visit storm-ravaged puerto rico early next week. everybody has said it s amazing the job we ve done in puerto rico. we are very proud of it. i m going there on tuesday. reporter: he hastily scheduled trip coming amid criticism the federal government s efforts are falling short if providing aid to the u.s. territory that s home to 3.4 million people and entirely without power. as we speak, fema, our great first responders and all available fal federal resources, including the military, are being marshalled to save lives, protect families and begin a long and very, very difficult restoration process. reporter: today, trump pointed to the heavily indebted island existing infrastructure challenges, saying that has inhibited relief efforts. the infrastructure was in bad shape as you know in puerto rico
hurricane maria. massive effort is underway and we have been really treated very nicely by the governor and by everybody else. they know how hard we are working and what a good job we are doing. as we speak fema, our great first responders and all available federal resources including the military are being marshaled to save lives, protect families and begin a long and very, very difficult restoration process. i have directed all relevant departments and agencies to assist in the response and recovery effort. as governor just told me this morning, the entire federal workforce is doing great work in
distribute food and water and we ll be going into neighborhoods, frankly, checking on people and working hard. most of the state is without power. so this is a major this is going to be a major statewide crisis. we did secure assets on the front end. we had people staged to begin the restoration process. we re going to work aggressively and do everything that we can to take care of our people, get them back up and running. and what you you know, what you ve learned in these events, something we should know, pay attention to every day unfortunately sometimes it takes events like this the most important thing we have is each other. we are all in it together. that is the message that resonates out of everybody s mouths and hearts in this situation so far. mr. mayor, let me let you get back to it. thank you for being with us. good luck to you in jacksonville. thank you. be safe down there.