kaitlan collins is cnn s white house reporter, and cnn political commentators ana navarro and mike shields also here this evening. good evening to all of you. ana, watching the oval office today with the reporters there with fema, homeland security, at first the president seemed in command. it seems like he was committed to safety. but then he veers off-course. he s flat out wrong when he says the response to puerto rico was one of the best responses ever. it is offensive. i think it s offensive. what about you? you know, i don t even know what to expect from this president when it comes to puerto rico and the response to puerto rico anymore. practically everything he has done and said is inappropriate. it was insufficient. it is offensive. and if you and i are offended, just imagine how you would feel if you were puerto rican or imagine how you would feel if you are the relative, if you lost a loved one, if you are one
offensive to those people when they re trying to help the people in puerto rico. it turns into a big partisan fight. the governor has been talking about we ve been denied our rights as puerto ricans because i m sure he s for statehood. so, what do you know, we re turning this into another partisan fight and i think it s disgusting. do you think it was an unsung success, mike? i think considering what puerto rico started with, there were a lot of really well intentioned, effective people in fema, career people in fema, career people in the national guard, career people in the corps of engineers that are doing amazing work down there, and no one is going to give them any credit for the hard work they re putting in, in incredibly difficult circumstances because this gets turned into a partisan fight to try to slam the president. so, for the president to back up his people that he sent down there and for him to have granted every single request maybe kaitlan can correct me if i m wro
so to lay at his feet the fact that an island nation of puerto rico, which by every puerto rican would tell you not enough has been done there for the last 30 years and to compare that to texas, where the infrastructure, the national guard, the state has money, the state has roads, it has infrastructure, hospitals to compare those two states is just frankly absurd, and i think it is a partisan attack to try to hang this around the neck of the president. the ship they had to take the navy ship comfort, which the president immediately sent down to puerto rico, and it couldn t even dock. so the military is being sent down there. aid is being sent down there, but the island itself is incapable of accepting a lot of help. a lot of people that died were actually trapped on the side of mountains that couldn t be reached. now, i don t know if we expect a corps of engineers who by the way are down in puerto rico still to this day. so when we say puerto rico s bad, what you re really saying
no, i m not going to no. because american citizens are american citizens whether they re in puerto rico, whether they re in texas. if i know you re going to be needing more help because of your circumstances, i should be prepare to give that more help. then what should they have done? should they have sent the comfort ship down during the storm or waited until after? what would you have done differently than all the requests that came from the island mike, i think that s an unfair question. she s not a safety official and not a fema official, but go on. well, exactly. people like russel people like general russel honore, who was the guy on the ground after katrina, after george w. bush realized that there had been huge mistakes and had the humility to admit that he had made mistakes on katrina, general honore has said just what slow and lack of response there has been. you know, here in florida, we had elderly citizens die in a, you know, home for the elderly because th
people you re basically saying they suck. do you think it was i think it s incredibly offensive to those people when they re trying to help the people in puerto rico. it turns into a big partisan fight. the governor has been talking about we ve been denied our rights as puerto ricans because i m sure he s for statehood. we re turning this into another partisan fight and do you think it was an unsung success, mike? i think considering what puerto rico started with, there were a lot of really well intentioned, effective people in fema, career people in fema, career people in the national guard, career people in the corps of engineers that are doing amazing work down there, and no one is going to give them any credit for the hard work they re putting in, in incredibly difficult circumstances because this gets turned into a partisan fight to so for him to have granted every single request maybe kaitlan can correct me if i m wrong. every single request from puerto rico tha