For three days, Donald Trump has been focused like a laser beam on the alleged ungratefulness of professional athletes kneeling during the National Anthem to protest racial injustice, tweeting 17 times on the subject.  Over this same period, the president has not once expressed solidarity or support for the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, where millions of Americans are reportedly without food, water, electricity, or shelter, in what officials there warn is quickly becoming a humanitarian crisis after Hurricane Maria destroyed much of the island’s infrastructure.  More than 10,000 homes and 80 percent of the island’s transmission and distribution infrastructure were reportedly destroyed when the powerful storm tore through the Caribbean.  Some have predicted it might take four to six months for electricity to be fully restored to the 3.4 million people living on Puerto Rico. 

The president’s apparent disinterest in the national disaster, after his high-profile tours of the damage from Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Hurricane Irma in Florida, has not gone unnoticed.  Ricardo Rosselló, the governor of Puerto Rico, is pleading for help from the Trump administration and Congress. “ We need to prevent a humanitarian crisis occurring in America,” Rosselló said in an interview with CNN on Monday. “ We need something tangible, a bill that actually answers to our need right now,” warning that if the island doesn’t get aid soon there will be “a massive exodus to the (mainland) United States.” 

According to The New York Times, much of the agriculture in Puerto Rico has been completely decimated, with the Category 4 storm stripping trees of “not just the leaves, but also the bark, leaving a rich agricultural region looking like the result of a postapocalyptic drought.”  Carlos Flores Ortega, Puerto Rico’s secretary of the Department of Agriculture, said that the hurricane had wiped out about 80 percent of the crop value on the island. 

On Monday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called on her colleagues across the aisle and the White House to address the worsening situation. “ The Trump administration must act immediately to make available additional Department of Defense resources for search-and-rescue operations, law enforcement, and transportation needs,” the California Democrat wrote in a statement.  Speaker Paul Ryan also pledged relief for the territory. “ The stories and images coming out of Puerto Rico are devastating.  Congress is working with the administration to ensure necessary resources get to the U.S. territory,” he wrote in a statement.  All five living former presidents—Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama—launched a campaign to raise money for Maria’s victims. 

While Trump quickly approved a declaration of a state of emergency for Puerto Rico, authorizing federal funds and resources for the island, critics have slammed the president for not doing more—and for his continued obsession with the National Football League while millions of Americans are in desperate need of help. “ Mr. President, instead of dividing the country over this you could give support to the 3.4 million Americans without power in Puerto Rico,” Democratic Congressman Don Beyer tweeted, in reference to Trump’s fixation on the N.F.L. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo echoed the sentiment. “ We need the federal government to act,” he said at a gathering of the Business Council of New York State, according to the Daily News. “ All the hubbub about N.F.L. football players—focus on Puerto Rico, focus on priorities.”  G.O.P. strategist Steve Schmidt tweeted, “There are millions of our fellow Americans on Puerto Rico facing great danger and suffering.  Trump silence and inaction is appalling.” 

“This is a major disaster, not unlike Katrina or Sandy,” Rosselló said. “ There is going to be a hefty toll for us to make sure that we can re-establish normalcy and build Puerto Rico back stronger.”