Do top Republicans agree with Donald Trump’s claim that Hurricane Maria’s death toll in Puerto Rico is a lie and a Democratic conspiracy? As usual, these profiles in courage are scrambling not to say anything that might seem critical of Dear Leader, without actually signing on to his conspiracy theories.
“Casualties don’t make a person look bad, so I have no reason to dispute these numbers,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan. “It’s an isolated island that lost its infrastructure and power for a long time.” In translation, Trump is wrong about the numbers, but let’s make some excuses about the loss of infrastructure and power without talking about why the recovery wasn’t faster, because talking about that wouldn’t be a good look for Trump. In case his excuse-making wasn’t strong enough, though, Ryan took a second stab at it, saying “And that’s really no one’s fault. It’s just what happened.” And the Ryan-led House sure isn’t going to investigate and risk finding out that it didn’t “just happen” and it is someone’s fault.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) fell back on Ryan’s usual favorite dodge:
As many, many people noted on Twitter, this is where reporters should be reading out the tweet and holding their phones out for Hatch to read it himself. “I haven’t seen it” is no excuse when we’re talking about a tweet that would take 15 seconds to read.
Once again, Donald Trump has said something that Republicans can’t defend on the merits. But they won't admit that, so they’re dodging and ducking and pretending that thousands of deaths (that even they can’t deny really happened) are “just what happened” and “really no one’s fault.”