Red Sox Manager Alex Cora Declined Trump White House Visit in 2019 to Respect Puerto Rico Hurricane Victims

Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora said he made the decision to turn down an invitation to then-President Donald Trump’s White House after winning the 2018 World Series because he felt “awkward” celebrating while his home, Puerto Rico, still suffered from Hurricane Maria.

Cora told The Mayor’s Office podcast host Sean Casey on Wednesday that he had “nothing against” Trump, but felt that “celebrating something at that stage, while [Puerto Ricans] were still suffering, it was bad.” The White House visit occurred on May 9, 2019.

Cora explained:

One of the things that — it’s not that I regret, but I think I should’ve been more clear — it was a visit to the White House. … I have nothing against the President at that moment. It was Donald Trump at that moment, President Trump, but I felt me celebrating something at that stage, while [Puerto Ricans] were still suffering, it was bad. I didn’t feel comfortable doing it.

Watch interview here:

The MLB manager praised the U.S., and called what it did for Puerto Rico “amazing,” and seemed to lament that people took his decision to decline the White House visit as political. Cora claimed that it was actually about sports and family, and said, concerning Puerto Rico and the hurricane:

We are part of the United States. … What they do for us is amazing — the funding, all of that — but there was still work to do. And I felt very awkward, like, ‘let’s celebrate this at the White House’ right while a lot of people suffered here. People took it like politics. No. My thing is sports and my family, right? I regret because I wasn’t clear about it.

Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico as a “high-end category 4 hurricane” in September 2017, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and, as of NHC’s report in 2023, was the “third costliest hurricane in United States history.”

President Trump applied “the full resources of the federal government” to aid victims, and he and first lady Melania Trump traveled to Puerto Rico on October 3, 2017, where they “were briefed on the status of the relief effort and met with residents impacted by Hurricane Maria.”

The Hurricane Maria disaster relief efforts became mired in controversy in the months and years following the storm, resulting in the firing of Puerto Rico’s disaster agency head and two other officials in 2020 after aid supplies designated for survivors were found unused in a warehouse.

Fox News reported on a controversy surrounding the actual numbers of deceased, after Puerto Rico’s government “had its official death toll increased in August 2018 from initially 64 people dead to 2,975”:

Hurricanes Irma and Maria struck the island in September 2017, the latter of which had its official death toll increased in August 2018 from initially 64 people dead to 2,975.

Trump tweeted that “Democrats” had elevated the numbers of deaths due to the hurricane, even those that died “for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list,” in order to make him “look as bad as possible.” Trump tweeted:

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. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!

The day after Trump posted the tweets, Cora called Trump’s comments “disrespectful,” telling reporters, “I don’t agree with a lot of what he says about us [Puerto Rico],” and that for Trump “to be tweeting about 3,000 people and being efficient, it’s actually disrespectful for my country. We see it that way. I know probably he doesn’t feel that way.”

Cora responded when asked by reporters about Trump’s tweets:

“It’s a little bit, kind of like frustrating that the topic keeps coming and coming and coming. What’s the point? Honestly, you know?” Cora told reporters. “And I respect him. He’s the president of the United States, but I don’t agree with a lot of what he says about us.”

…

“I hate that people are making it a political issue. It’s about human beings. The people that went through this, they know what happened,” Cora said. “Nineteen percent of our population are elderly. It’s old people, just put it that way. And the effect of September 16th, the rain and the winds and whatever happens, maybe 18 people died. But the after-effects, people don’t talk about that. You don’t have food, you don’t have water, no communication, no medicine, then this happened. And one thing for sure, the government helped. We do feel that they helped us. We don’t know if it was sufficient, that it was enough, I don’t know. The one thing for sure, the Red Sox helped, [so did] the Cubs, the Pirates, the Houston Astros, there’s a lot of people in the States that are still helping us. To be tweeting about 3,000 people and being efficient, it’s actually disrespectful for my country. We see it that way. I know probably he doesn’t feel that way.”

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“And I gotta say, man, thank you for helping us. He went down there, he did what he did. I hate talking about politics and all of that, but I think this is about more than politics. I think it’s about a country that really suffered,” Cora said. “We still — you see the hurricane swarming now [in the Carolinas], and everybody’s panicking. It’s not easy, but, hey, one thing is for sure and I’ve told you guys before, one thing I’m proud is we’re standing up on our own two feet. Do we need help? Yeah, we do. We know that. But we’ve been battling through it. We’re not where we were, but we will be there. And it’s just a matter of time.”

The Red Sox made headlines in August 2024, when outfielder Jarren Duran issued an apology after shouting an anti-gay slur to a fan who was heckling him during Boston’s loss to the Houston Astros.