
After Donald Trump's vile attack on the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, his team went into immediate defense mode, dredging up two old tweets from the mayor to use in a pathetic attempt to discredit and dismiss her.

Donald Trump and his team continue to dig in their heels on their shameful and callous responses to the devastation that Hurricane Maria brought to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the added harm from their lack of substantive action.

In what was quickly labeled as "Trump's Katrina," the administration has shown no sense of urgency whatsoever when it comes to relief and recovery efforts for millions of American citizens. Trump blamed Puerto Rico itself for the disaster, and also tried, amazingly, to blame the "very big ocean" for making relief missions too difficult.

In a truly galling move, after the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulin Cruz, was on national television begging for the White House to save their lives, Trump lashed out at her in an early morning Twitter rant.


And the next step in their heinous scheme is a pathetic attempt to discredit her by digging up a couple of old tweets in which she expressed criticism of Trump during the presidential campaign.

Dan Scavino, Jr., the White House director of social media, took to Twitter just like his boss to go after Cruz with their ridiculous version of opposition research:

For merely stating her opinion that Trump did not deserve to be president, and that if elected, he would be "a nightmare" — something that has proven to be true every day of his time in office, and certainly every day that this disaster has unfolded — Scavino attacked Cruz as a "hater" and an "opportunistic politician."

It takes some nerve for anyone who works for Donald Trump to call someone else a "hater."

And it betrays a stunning dearth of anything even resembling compassion to lash out at a heroic woman pleading for the lives of her constituents to be saved in the wake of a massive natural disaster, simply because she did not support Trump's candidacy.

Cruz's past statements have precisely nothing to do with what is happening to her home today, but the administration is desperately trying to fend of criticism of their own failings by trying to smear a woman who dared to rebuke Trump — certainly nothing new for the oversensitive Trump, but no less repugnant for its familiarity.

As Melissa Mark-Viverito, a Puerto Rican woman who is the speaker of the New York City Council, put it, this administration is treating the people of Puerto Rico, including Cruz, like "second-class citizens."

And apparently, they don't believe those citizens even have the right to speak up for themselves, if they ever once spoke out against Trump.