National

‘You’re going straight to hell,’ Lin-Manuel Miranda tells Trump after Puerto Rico tweets

Lin-Manuel Miranda
Lin-Manuel Miranda Charles Sykes/Invision/AP

Many have made impassioned responses to President Donald Trump’s tweets in which he criticized the leadership in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico and implied its people are passing the buck on the U.S. territory’s recovery.

“You’re going straight to hell,” tweeted Lin-Manuel Miranda. “No long lines for you. Someone will say, ‘Right this way, sir.’ They’ll clear a path.”

Miranda, a playwright and actor who created and starred in “Hamilton,” is the son of Luis A. Miranda, Jr., who moved to New York from Puerto Rico when he was 17.

Trump criticized the mayor of capital San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz, the morning after she said, “We are dying, and you are killing us with the inefficiency and the bureaucracy.”

The president asserted that Cruz was being influence by Democrats who were telling her to “be nasty to Trump.”

He went on to denigrate other leaders, as well as the Puerto Rican people who “want everything to be done for them.”

Many in the territory remain desperate for necessities, most urgently water, long after Hurricane Maria tore a ruinous path through the island Sept. 20.

However, there has been some progress in delivering supplies. More Puerto Ricans have received water and rationed food as an aid bottleneck has begun to ease. Telecommunications are back for about 30 percent of the island, nearly half of the supermarkets have reopened at least for reduced hours and about 60 percent of the gas stations are pumping. But many

Trump has pledged to spare no effort to help Puerto Rico recover from Maria’s ruinous aftermath, and tweeted that military personnel and first responders have done “an amazing job,” despite having “no electric, roads, phones etc.”

But critics have accused Trump of showing more concern for the people of Texas and Florida, whose lives were also upended by major hurricanes this season. Trump repeatedly praised those citizens as strong and resilient, declaring at one point that Texas could “handle anything.”

Trump also called out media outlets for reporting on his tweets.

Many have tweeted in response to Trump’s latest series of tweets.

Many others tweeted in support of Trump:

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Max Londberg: 816-234-4378, @MaxLondberg

This story was originally published September 30, 2017 at 12:45 PM with the headline "‘You’re going straight to hell,’ Lin-Manuel Miranda tells Trump after Puerto Rico tweets."

Get unlimited digital access
#ReadLocal

Try 1 month for $1

CLAIM OFFER