President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump landed in Florida Monday to tour the areas devastated by Hurricane Michael last week.
Michael, one of the strongest storms to hit the region in years, has so far killed 18, with dozens of people missing. More than 250,000 are still without power across the Southeast, according to CNN. When he arrived, Trump praised local officials for their response.
“The job they’ve done in Florida has been incredible,” said Trump, according to CNN. “Likewise, in Georgia.”
Trump hosted a political rally in Pennsylvania the night of Hurricane Michael’s landfall, but within five days, the president made landfall in the Southeast and called Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott a “great governor.”
This warm response is vastly different from Trump’s words following Hurricane Maria’s devastation from Puerto Rico last year, which killed an estimated 3,000 people and left the entire island without power. After Maria, nearly two weeks passed before Trump visited the island.
Immediately following that storm, Trump’s first tweet offered kind words to Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello, but soon he began a feud with San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, tweeting that she and other local officials’ “poor leadership ability” was to blame for any insufficient aid.
Cruz became a public voice for the island, asking for more aid in Maria’s wake. Scott, however, says he’s gotten everything he’s asked for from the federal government following Michael, the Washington Post reports.
