'The View' Gets Heated as Trump Downplays Deaths In Puerto Rico: 'This Is Grotesque'

A study commissioned by the Puerto Rican government said the number was almost 3,000 people, something Trump shot down on Twitter. "3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000."

"This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico," he added. "If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!"

Sunny Hostin, who is of Puerto Rican descent, was not having it.

"I think if you haven't lost someone in Puerto Rico, if you're just an American citizen, if you're just a human and have any empathy for anyone else, you should feel that this is grotesque," she said. "A true leader would offer his condolences to the people of Puerto Rico, a true leader would offer his condolences to United States citizens and vow to never let something like that happen again."

"I think these statements make him illegitimate as a president of the United States," she said. "He's an illegitimate president handling this situation in this way. If you are a United States citizen, you should be disgusted by this."

Abby Huntsman agreed that Trump's tweets were insensitive, saying the focus should be on what happened in Puerto Rico and not Trump's ego. She compared his messages to his statements about the crowd size at his inauguration and poll numbers. She then added, "It's sad to me that a natural disaster has to get political, I don't think President Trump is solely to blame for what happened, Puerto Rico had a number of its own problems before Maria even hit, they were filing for bankruptcy."

Hostin blamed the Jones Act, saying it allowed the U.S. government to "pillage and rape" the island since its inception in 1920, before asking why Trump didn't have an equal reaction to Maria as President Obama did to Haiti, which isn't even a U.S. territory.

"Why wasn't the response for Puerto Rico, a United States territory, the exact same?" she asked. "It wasn't because this president doesn't care about Puerto Rico."

"I don't think that's fair," said Huntsman, who added she also didn't think it was fair to compare Trump's action's to those of a dictator, something that was mentioned on the previous day's show.

"I think that's too generous," Hostin shot back.

"That's comparing him to Hitler, someone who gasses his own people that starve their people, the orders for thousands of their own people to die," Huntsman responses. "Do you think President Trump is in the oval office saying, 'How can we make it worse for Puerto Ricans? How can we make it so more people die?' You think that was actually happening in the White House?"

While Hostin said she "would never" company anyone to Hitler, she said Trump simply just "did not care enough" in this instance.

"At the time that this was happening, he was more concerned with NFL athletes protesting and kneeling then he was concerned about what's going on in the United States," she continued. "When you see someone, the president, letting his own citizens die and then turning it around and saying they didn't really die, I think that's very similar to the acts of a dictator. I said it and I'll say it again."

"It's an easy applause line and I think it's an extreme way to look at it," replied Huntsman. "This situation what happened in Puerto Rico, it's far more complicated and its not the president saying I want this to be a disaster for everyone."

Whoopi Goldberg shut down the conversation by telling Trump to "Stop tweeting, man."

"You're not helping. you can tweet all you want to, but quit making yourself out to be this hero," she added. "It's not about you and you have not been heroic."