Trump's Racism Caused Him To Push To Sell Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico is 5,328 square miles with a population of 3.2 million (Americans). Greenland is melting but the area is 836,300 square miles with around 56,000 people, less than the 70,000 who live in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico's 7th largest city. Greenland's biggest town, Nuuk, has 18,000 people. There are 140 Americans station in Greenland at the Thule Air Base.

Former Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor is getting really famous. The video above is an interview he did with Hallie Jackson on MSNBC yesterday. It's worth watching the whole thing but at the 5:15 point he said "One time before we went down, [Trump] told us, not only did he want to purchase Greenland, he actually said he wanted to see if we could sell Puerto Rico, could we swap Puerto Rico for Greenland, because, in his words, Puerto Rico was dirty and the people were poor."

Taylor said Trump wasn't joking. He said that Trump "expressed deep animus towards the Puerto Rican people behind scenes. These are people who were recovering from the worst disaster of their lifetime. He is their president. He should be standing by them, not trying to sell them off to a foreign country."

Alan Grayson, who grew up in the Bronx, in an area that has more Puerto Ricans than anyplace else in the continental U.S. and then went on to represent the Orlando area, which has one of the continental U.S.' biggest Puerto Rican populations said he feel "the feeling is mutual. I’m sure that Puerto Ricans would love to trade Donald Trump for the Queen of England, Pope Francis, or even Muammar Qaddafi’s corpse. To say that Donald Trump is a racist is like saying that Serena Williams is a tennis player."

I think anyone who knows anything about Trump from his pre-White House days, knows he's always been a bigot with an animus towards Puerto Ricans, especially working class Puerto Ricans. The first time the young Trump made it into the legitimate newspapers was as the result of the federal government suing him and his father for illegally discriminating against Puerto Rican families in a building development they used federal funds to develop. That's around the time Woody Guthrie, one other tenants in Brooklyn rode this song about Trump, Sr.





Progressive Jared West is the official Democratic candidate running to replace Trumpist Sam Killebrew in the Winter Haven-Haines City-Davenport area of Polk County (HD-41). He wasn't happy about hearing what Trump said about Puerto Ricans. "It is absolutely deplorable Trump said that," he told me this morning, "but are we really surprised? Puerto Rico has been through a lot lately, and he’s done nothing but mock them and ignore them. Puerto Rican people are Americans, and my district has one of the highest concentrations of Puerto Rican’s in Florida. Many of them came over after the natural disasters. Today, when I’m elected, and forever, I stand with all people and especially Puerto Ricans to denounce this awful hate filled rhetoric. We will see you in November Donald Trump, and you will be answering for these comments."

Bob Lynch is the Democratic Party candidate for the Miami-Dade state House seat held by GOP wig wig Daniel Perez, a knee-jerk Trumpist, with no interest in working families other than during election season. Lynch has a very different perspective. This morning he told me that "It is unclear why Miles seems surprised as to the extent of Trump’s depravity and lack of humanity. He willingly went to work for a man that announced his presidency by declaring our Latino neighbors to be rapists, thugs, and killers. We have people that are still living without electricity and running water in Puerto Rico because of the agency Miles continued to work for, despite his shamelessly self-serving newfound conscience. Trump, Kitstjen Nielsen, and Miles Taylor are all personally responsible for thousands of needless deaths in Puerto Rico as well as thousands of Latino families destroyed after being separated by ICE. Miles should have resigned and immediately gone to Congress the day it was proposed to keep children in cages. Congress should also haul him, Nielsen, and everyone else who committed crimes against humanity at Trump’s behest in for non-stop hearings between now and November. A redemption tour because he sees grifters like the Lincoln Project getting rich is not something the media should be feeding into. Donald Trump doesn’t consider Puerto Rican’s to be Americans nor does he believe other Latinos should be given basic human rights. Miles Taylor could have done something to stop it and chose to do nothing. November is way too late for his victims."

Here's the version of the same Woody Guthrie song, the one I've been listening to for the last few years-- and performed by Ryan Harvey, Ani DeFranco and Tom Morello: