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Revealed! Trump wanted to “sell” Puerto Rico, according to former DHS head

Revealed! Trump wanted to “sell” Puerto Rico, according to former DHS head

Remember that time when Donald Trump announced that he wanted to buy Greenland, even though he didn’t even seem to know what nation the large arctic territory actually belonged to?

The president faced an incredible amount of humiliation and ridicule for that brainstorm, but it turns out that that particular idea wasn’t the most outrageous of his island fantasies.

According to a new interview in The New York Times with former Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, Elaine Duke — a life-long Republican loyalist who has grown increasingly disenchanted with the president — Trump had an even more ludicrous idea about how to deal with Puerto Rico when the island was facing its darkest hours in the aftermath of Hurrican Maria when over 3,000 people were killed and the nation was facing an expensive rebuilding and relief effort.

The president’s out of the box — and into the garbage can — idea was worthy of a rapacious bankruptcy-prone real estate developer looking to cut his costs without any thought for the consequences it would have on the people who would be affected by his defective thinking or for the basic principles of self-determination that all human beings should be afforded.

“The president’s initial ideas were more of as a businessman, you know,” she told the New York Times of one meeting concerning the island commonwealth amid disater discussions. “Can we outsource the electricity? Can we can we sell the island? You know, or divest of that asset?”

The notion of Puerto Rico as an asset to be exploited or sold rather than an integral territory of the United States filled with actual U.S. citizens betrays Trump’s essential racism towards the Hispanic citizens of our nation, as well as his complete disregard for the opinions of the people who would be most affected by any attempts to sell or barter the island full of U.S. citizens.

For our transactional president, for whom the only values that exist are pecuniary estimations of financial benefit, such an unthinkable concept comes as naturally as passing wind — and is totally redolent of a similar noxious aroma.

One can only hope that the memory of Trump’s presidency when he is finally banished from office will be as passing as that stench in the middle of a hurricane.

Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.

Original reporting by at The New York Times.

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Vinnie Longobardo
Managing Editor
Vinnie Longobardo is the Managing Editor of Occupy Democrats. He's a 35-year veteran of the TV, mobile & internet industries, specializing in start-ups and the international media business. His passions are politics, music, and art.

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