Washington, September 14 (RHC)-- U.S. President Donald Trump is facing a widespread backlash after he tried to claim that his administration’s response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico last year was “an incredible unsung success.”

Responding to questions about what could be learned from Hurricane Maria as Hurricane Florence approaches the East Coast of the U.S., Trump denied that 3,000 people died as a result of Maria and claimed that the problems stemmed from the mayor of San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico, and Democrats who added numbers to the death toll to make him look bad.

Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, responding to Trump, said: “The world has seen and the majority of the American people have seen how neglectful he (Trump) was towards the people of Puerto Rico.  If he calls a success, or an unsung success, 3,000 people dying on his watch—definitely he doesn’t know what success is.”

But it wasn’t only the mayor who criticized Trump.  His ally, Puerto Rico’s governor Ricardo Roselló, also attacked Trump saying: “No relationship between a colony and the federal government can ever be called 'successful' because Puerto Ricans lack certain inalienable rights enjoyed by our fellow Americans in the states.”

Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s response to Hurricane Maria faced even more criticism Wednesday after the publication of new photos showing millions of bottles of water meant for hurricane victims still sitting unused on a tarmac nearly a year after the hurricane made landfall.

And new reports from San Juan, the Puerto Rican capital, reveal that FEMA has approved only three percent of requests for funeral assistance from Puerto Ricans who lost their loved ones during Hurricane Maria.