Soldiers assigned to the 1st Mission Support Command, U.S. Army Reserve, move cases of bottled water while working to clear roads of debris near Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2017.

President Donald Trump said the military shouldn't have to distribute the "massive amounts" of food and water that have been delivered to storm-battered Puerto Rico.

When a reporter asked Trump about disaster relief on the island, the president said that food and water had been brought to Puerto Rico, but it wasn't being distributed by local people.

"They have to distribute the food to the people of the island. So, what we've done is, we now actually have military distributing food, something that really they shouldn't have to be doing," he said in a wide-ranging, hastily scheduled press conference on Monday.

The remark follows comments Trump made last week, where he partly blamed the island for the devastation and said emergency responders can't stay in Puerto Rico "forever."

@realDonaldTrump: ...We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!

Puerto Rico has been reeling in the wake of Hurricane Maria, which left most of the U.S. territory without power or access to clean drinking water. Over the weekend, local authorities raised the death toll to 48 after reviewing medical records.