【Dear Utol (2025): Maniac Photographer Episode 26】

Donald Trump finally made it to Puerto Rico today,Dear Utol (2025): Maniac Photographer Episode 26 two weeks after Category 4 Hurricane Maria made landfall and devastated the island. He brought the full-on Trump charm with him, slinging jokes and comments that were tone deaf at best, given the dire situation in the island nation and his handling of it all.

From an opening crack about the weather to bringing up the F-35 aircraft even though it was unrelated to the storm, Trump was all over the map. Which, to be fair, shouldn't really shock us anymore.

And, yet, here we are.

"You really got hit."

Trump opened by praising the beauty and weather of Puerto Rico, with the exception of the whole hurricane thing. "Your weather is second to none but once in a while you get hit," he said. "And you really got hit, there's no question about it." Maybe it was the jovial tone or maybe it was the small smile on his face but this one was ... yeah.

"He didn't play politics."

We already know Trump spent a lot of time and energy attacking San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, who begged FEMA and members of the administration for more help in the aftermath of the storm, but didn't mention Trump by name.

And that's certainly who he was implicitly criticizing when he heaped praise on Puerto Rico's Governor Ricardo Rossello by insisting, "this governor did not play politics, he didn't play it all ... he was giving us the highest grades."

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Shade by omission! By the way, Mayor Cruz was in attendance -- the briefing was in San Juan, after all -- and yet, despite praising other officials and government agencies, Trump had no praise for the mayor.

The pair did share a handshake later, which is nice, I guess.

"You've thrown our budget a little out of whack."

As Trump introduced his budget chief Mick Mulvaney, Trump jokingly chided Puerto Rico for the hit his budget took because they had the gall to get hit by a major hurricane.

O.K., maybe don't bring this up even if you are joking? I mean, these guys have been working around the clock for two weeks on a decimated U.S. territory and 95 percent of the island is still without power. And you called them lazy!

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Maybe don't sneak in the extra zinger about your budget because that's probably the last thing anyone wants to hear about. Just a thought.

"A real catastrophe like Katrina."

So, right after he made the budget crack, Trump then made an awkward transition to discussing the death toll and how happy he was it wasn't higher. In fact, Puerto Rico hasn't updated the current toll -- 16 -- in nearly a week and suspicions are growing that the actual toll will be much higher.

Not higher than Katrina, no, likely not, just as Trump pointed out. But then by comparing Maria to Katrina, Trump implied that Katrina was "a real catastrophe," which means Maria ... wasn't?

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Also, don't compare disasters! Besides being in poor taste because people died and property and lives were destroyed, you pit the victims of one against the other.

That and you highlight the two things these storms have in common: they were both major hurricanes that led to a federal response that was harshly criticized.

"That's an expensive plane you can't see."

Talking to an Air Force representative, who Trump seemed to at first mistake for a Coast Guard officer, Trump brought up one of his favorite topics, the F-35 fighter jet.

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Why, though?!? The press conference was ostensibly about a hurricane and the federal government's response to it, not an opportunity to brag about the cost of an unrelated aircraft (which Trump may not even deserve credit for).

"Its' hard to fight a plane you can't see," Trump said. "But that's an expensive plane you can't see. And as you probably heard, we cut the price quite substantially. Something that other administrations never have done, that I can tell you."

At least we can take comfort in one thing: Trump is nothing if not consistent -- he'll always make a disaster about himself.