Trump: Dems will ‘lie’ and say Hurricane Florence response was bad

President Trump on Tuesday preemptively attacked Democrats for any potential criticism of his administration’s response to Hurricane Florence along the mid-Atlantic coast.

“Right now, everybody is saying what a great job we are doing with Hurricane Florence – and they are 100% correct,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

“But don’t be fooled, at some point in the near future the Democrats will start ranting that FEMA, our Military, and our First Responders, who are all unbelievable, are a disaster and not doing a good job,” he continued, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “This will be a total lie, but that’s what they do, and everybody knows it!”

…that FEMA, our Military, and our First Responders, who are all unbelievable, are a disaster and not doing a good job. This will be a total lie, but that’s what they do, and everybody knows it!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 18, 2018

{mosads}More than 30 people have died from Florence’s effects. The storm has since been downgraded to a tropical depression. It has dumped huge amounts of rain on North Carolina and parts of South Carolina in recent days, leading to severe flooding.

Hundreds of thousands of residents in North and South Carolina are without power, and parts of Virginia have experienced heavy rainfall as well.

The president repeatedly praised the FEMA and first responders for their preparedness in the days leading up to the storm, and has continued to do so since Florence made landfall last Friday.

“FEMA, First Responders and Law Enforcement are working really hard on hurricane Florence,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “As the storm begins to finally recede, they will kick into an even higher gear. Very Professional!”

The president is expected to visit areas affected by the hurricane this week. Trump declared a state of emergency in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia ahead of the storm.

Trump’s unprompted attacks against Democrats on Tuesday come less than a week after he claimed without evidence that the party was responsible for inflating the death toll of last year’s Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico to make him “look as bad as possible.”

The president doubled down on his unfounded claim that 3,000 people did not die in Maria, despite the Puerto Rican government officially adopting the findings of a George Washington University study that said as much.

The government-commissioned study estimated that 2,975 people died in the six months immediately following the storm. Puerto Rican officials officially raised the death toll from 64 to 2,975 as a result.

The president drew swift backlash from Democrats, Puerto Rican officials and a handful of Republicans for casting doubt on the death toll, though some allies defended Trump and questioned the methodology of the study.