Trump Calls Out Media on Puerto Rico Death Toll Lie

RUSH: Now we go to the hurricane in Puerto Rico, because the Drive-By Media is doing everything it can to say that Donald Trump is complicit in that one, that Donald Trump didn’t care, that Donald Trump didn’t do enough to help people, that Donald Trump is out lying about the great American response. By the way, ours was the only response. There was no other assistance in Puerto Rico but ours.

Remember we learned that Puerto Rico officials hid hundreds of thousands of bottles of water intended for victims. They were uncovered recently. That was aid that was not distributed. Now they’re running around claiming that Trump is complicit, didn’t care. The latest is that 3,000 people died in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. And Donald Trump is saying that is simply not true, 3,000 people didn’t die.

Where did the 3,000 number come from? Researchers at George Washington University — researchers at George Washington University determined last month that Hurricane Maria alone resulted in 2,975 excess deaths in Puerto Rico. This the media accepts without challenge. The media doesn’t say George Washington University, without evidence, determined last month that Hurricane Maria resulted in 2,975 deaths. But when Trump disputes it, they say Donald Trump, without evidence, says 3,000 people didn’t die.

Do you know that researchers at George Washington University did not go down there and count bodies? George Washington University, their finding was not the result of a death toll accounting. Nobody, researcher or otherwise from George Washington University went to Puerto Rico to count bodies on the ground, in the morgue, or wherever. Instead, you know what they did? They used a public health study that compared mortality in the six months following the storm with the number of deaths that would have been expected if the storm had not hit. They used a computer model!

Researchers at George Washington University reached their conclusion via a computer model, and the way they did it, they did a study that compared death in the six months following the storm with the number of deaths that would have been expected if it had not hit. And they come out magically with a number of 2,975 excess deaths that nobody chronicled, nobody reported, nobody counted, there are no bodies to confirm this.

The media’s effort to prove this was frustrated by several factors. First, experts praised the federal government’s response to Hurricane Maria, at first. “Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló himself praised the federal government’s response: ‘The president and the administration, every time we’ve asked them to execute, they’ve executed quickly,’ he told Fox News in September 2017.”

But Trump’s critics have not given up. They have attempted to cite several new studies, created new estimates of the real death toll. So here you have a computer model estimating this based on that estimate. Nobody has seen any bodies. George Washington University reports it as 3,000 deaths. The media falls right in line and reports it without checking, without confirming, just believing it because it’s a bunch of academics saying so.

Trump says it’s not possible. Only 18 people had died when I left there. That’s why they’re saying excess deaths. Excess deaths are not necessarily related to the storm. They just happened after the storm. Could be related, might not be. It’s just a bogus research study to go along with the fake news that Trump and the U.S. didn’t care about Puerto Rico ’cause they’re people of color because Trump is racist and all that and didn’t do anything to help the island.

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