President Trump was practically giddy on Twitter Wednesday over the massive hurricane barreling towards the country’s fourth most populous state, calling Hurricane Irma the “largest ever recorded in the Atlantic!” This came after a tweet about his tax reform agenda in which he again spread the lie that the U.S. was the “highest taxed nation in the world.”
Will be going to North Dakota today to discuss tax reform and tax cuts. We are the highest taxed nation in the world – that will change.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2017
Hurricane looks like largest ever recorded in the Atlantic!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2017
For Trump, size matters. Whether it is taxes or awesome storms, the president seems to believe everything he confronts is of unprecedented proportion. While Texas is still reeling from the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, Trump downplayed the devastation on Twitter Wednesday, saying that his response team was doing “such a good job in Texas” and that they were already preparing for Irma’s landfall in Florida. “No rest for the weary!” Trump tweeted.
Watching Hurricane closely. My team, which has done, and is doing, such a good job in Texas, is already in Florida. No rest for the weary!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2017
The president offered no prayers for the victims in Texas or the people of Florida bracing for the impact of Irma. Instead, he just marveled at the size of the storms he’s had to deal with.
Trump apparently failed to learn any lesson from his response to Harvey. The president was criticized last week for being more preoccupied with Harvey’s size than the people whose lives it had affected. A quick glance at Trump’s Twitter feed at the time would lead someone to believe that the president was actually rooting for an epic, once in a lifetime disaster.
Now it is déjà vu all over again.
Hurricane Irma has already passed over parts of the Caribbean and is preparing to make landfall in Florida by the end of the week.