The Mayor of San Juan Carmen Yulín Cruz chose a NASTY woman tee for her Univision interview after Trump's drop-in to Puerto Rico on Tuesday. The crude US president tweeted last Saturday ""The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump."

"When someone is bothered by someone claiming lack of drinking water, lack of medicine for the sick and lack of food for the hungry, that person has problems too deep to be explained in an interview," Cruz said during the interview. "What is really nasty is that anyone would turn their back on the Puerto Rican people."

Trump is the aggrieved party, claiming that the complaints of Cruz about his slow federal aid response to Hurricane Maris are politically motivated. Note that Cruz is not a Democrat and is registered with neither major party.

“I am begging, begging anyone who can hear us to save us from dying. If anybody out there is listening to us, we are dying, and you are killing us with the inefficiency,” the mayor said last Friday. The mayor's remarks followed earlier ones from acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke's comments in which she called the federal government's response "a good news story."

“Maybe from where she’s standing, it’s a good news story,” Cruz said. “When you’re drinking from a creek, it’s not a good news story. When you don’t have food for a baby, it’s not a good news story.”

She added: “Damn it, this is not a good news story. This is a people-are-dying story.”

Carmen Yulin Cruz talks with journalists (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Those comments left Trump fuming. The president insisted on Friday afternoon federal officials were doing a great job with relief efforts.

"We have done an incredible job, considering there's absolutely nothing to work with," Trump told reporters at the White House.

"And a very big question is, what are we going to do with the power plant? Because the power plant is totally wiped out," he said. "There is nothing. The power grid is gone."

The utter stupidity of Trump's approach in Puerto Rico, where he threw rolls of paper towels into the crowd, much like a carnival barker, is contrasted with efforts by Sonnen GmbH, a German provider of energy-storage systems. Sonnen began delivering its storage systems to Puerto Rico before Trump arrived, in an effort to provide electricity for at least 15 emergency relief centers across the island. It’s working with local partner Pura Energia, which installs solar panels with Sonnen batteries.

“Our smart energy storage system is uniquely positioned to serve as a critical resource during the emergency in Puerto Rico,” Blake Richetta, the head of Sonnen’s U.S. unit, said in the statement.

Sonnen, operating on the island since 2016, is donating equipment for the 15 relief centers. Committed to Puerto Rico for the long-term, the company will donate profit from local sales to build as many as 35 additional microgrids on the island. The batteries are produced at the company’s recently opened factory in Atlanta, and the first microgrids will be operating in less than a month.

“It is our duty to stand firmly with the people of Puerto Rico and do everything possible to help start the rebuilding process,” Chief Executive Officer Christoph Ostermann said in the statement. “There is a clear connection between our mission to support humanity during a climate disaster and our mission to fight climate change.”

Tesla's Elon Musk, has also indicated that he is prepared to be a key partner in rebuilding Puerto Rico's power grid using independent batteries and solar power.

Puerto Rico’s chief innovation officer Glorimar Ripoli is also on board. “As the Government’s CINO, I fully support this! Let’s build the Puerto Rico we all want through innovation,” she tweeted.

Mayor of San Juan Carmen Yulin Cruz embraces Esperanza Ruiz, a city administrator, outside the government centre at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum after Hurricane Maria in San Juan, Puerto Rico Carlos Barria/Reuters

Amid Trump's demeaning comments to Mayor Cruz -- surely fueled by her being a woman -- we assume that he has little knowledge of her background. The Independent UK writes:

Cruz has, in some ways, been a lifelong politician: Class president in eighth grade; student council president in high school.

Like many Puerto Ricans, she left the island to pursue opportunities on the US mainland, earning a bachelor's in political science at Boston University and a master's in public management and policy at Carnegie Mellon.

Apparently Mayor Cruz held key positions not only at Scotiabank but also the US Treasury Department. After returning to Puerto Rico, Cruz became an adviser to Sila Maria Calderon, then the mayor of San Juan who later became Puerto Rico's first and only female governor.

The Carnegie Mellon grad strung together a people-centric coalition including including the LGBT community, students, Dominican immigrants and taxi drivers. Fueled by people power, Cruz defeated a three-time incumbent Jorge Santini.

“Politics is a rough game, and sometimes as females we are taught that you have to play nice,” she said in a 2014 in an interview. “Sometimes you can't play nice.”

San Juan Mayor Carmen **Yulín**Cruz hugs a resident of a seniors home after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico. (Thais Llorca/European Pressphoto Agency-EFE)

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz made waves on Friday, speaking to media outlets including CNN and MSNBC about the need for more support from the Trump administration in dealing with the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria.

Cruz's comments were prompted by those made by Elaine Duke, acting Homeland Security Secretary, on Thursday. In an astonishing lack of empathy for the scene millions of Americans watched all week -- including frequent images of Mayor Cruz walking through sewage-laden waters with her bullhorn calling for her people.

Duke iterated her satisfaction with the recovery efforts in Puerto Rico, explaining that it was “really a good news story in terms of our ability to reach people and the limited number of deaths.”

Mayor Cruz vehemently disagreed, saying, "When you're drinking from a creek, it's not a good news story. When you don't have food for a baby, it's not a good news story. When you have to pull people down from buildings -- I'm sorry, that really upsets me and frustrates me."

Recognizing the error in her words Duke arrived in Puerto Rico on Friday, clarifying her earlier remarks in more humane terms.

The result of Cruz's pleas for more help was America's president Trump going ballistic on Twitter on Saturday morning, from his Bedminster Golf Club.

Early Saturday morning, Trump responded to Cruz’s critical remarks with his own, on Twitter. “The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump,” he said. “Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help."

Trump set off a furor with his accusations that the people of Puerto Rico "want everything done for them." We will cover them in a new article, but to hear Republicans calling San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz a "political hack" on the Sunday morning CNN news is just so distressing.

Related: Who Is Carmen Yulín Cruz, the Puerto Rican Mayor Feuding With Trump? The New York Times