CNN's New Day opened with a look at the devastation in Puerto Rico --
"These are Americans there. They don't have the infrastructure. It's true. It's a fragile Caribbean place. Does it seem unusual to you that the president of the United States, he jumped on Harvey. Alisyn was down showing how the federal government wanted to put their arms around it. We saw what happened with Irma. Why the difference here?" Chris Cuomo asked journalists John Avlon.
"Gee, Chris, I wonder," Avlon said with a hint of sarcasm.
"Look, the problem is that Texas, Florida are not only contiguous to the United States, but states that voted for Donald Trump. There's nothing been like Puerto Rico to the same degree. Partly because, unfortunately, these folks are not Trump supporters and they are not top of mind."
Cuomo pointed out Trump just gave a speech to the U.N. talking about sovereignty.
"These are Americans on that island," Avlon said.
"They are without power almost a week. Combined damage total may be more than Harvey and Irma combined. Everybody is concerned but the president is tweeting more about NFL and Hillary Clinton than he is about the island and when he is, he seems to be dissing the infrastructure. Is Maria Donald Trump's Katrina?"
Short answer: No, of course not. The beauty of Trump's "shock and awe" strategy is that there is so much happening on any given day, the media can't cover any individual story with the depth and repetition necessary to penetrate the public's consciousness. (You know, like Hillary Clinton's emails.)
