Donald Trump wanted to sell Puerto Rico or swap it for Greenland because he viewed the Caribbean territory as “dirty” and “poor”, a former senior White House official has said.
Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff to the former Department for Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, said the president made the comments in August 2018 – less than a year after Puerto Rico had been devastated by Hurricane Maria.
“Not only did he want to purchase Greenland, he actually said he wanted to see if we could sell Puerto Rico,” Mr Taylor told MSNBC on Wednesday. “Could we swap Puerto Rico for Greenland because, in his words, Puerto Rico was dirty and the people were poor.”
The comments by Taylor, who recently backed Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, appear to corroborate claims made in a New York Times report last month. White House officials never seriously pursued the suggestion of selling Puerto Rico, the Times report stated.
Maria was a deadly category five hurricane that tore through Dominica, St Croix, and Puerto Rico in September 2017. It is considered one of the worst natural disasters to hit the islands, and the most devastating Atlantic hurricane since Jeanne hit the region in 2004.
In Puerto Rico – a US territory – some 3,000 people were killed in the storm, which caused billions of dollars worth of damage, decimating livelihoods and entire communities.
“The president expressed deep animus towards the Puerto Rican people behind the scenes,” Taylor continued. “These are people who were recovering from the worst disaster of their lifetimes. He is their president. He should be standing by them, not trying to sell them off to a foreign country,” he added.
Responding to Taylor’s comments on Twitter, Mr Trump described the former DHS official as a “disgruntled” employee who he had “never heard of”. Keep Reading>>
