Red Sox Manager Alex Cora Calls President Donald Trump Comments on Puerto Rico 'Disrespectful'

President Trump tweeted Thursday morning about how Hurricane Maria's death toll had been exaggerated.

Rob Tringali/Sportschrome / Getty Images

Red Sox manager Alex Cora addressed President Donald Trump's comments on Thursday after the President tweeted he doubted the death toll in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria hit last year. 

The island formally raised the death toll from Hurricane Maria to an estimated 2,975 from 64 following a study by researchers at The George Washington University. Trump didn't think it was accurate.

Cora, who is Puerto Rican, called the comments "disrespectful."

"To be tweeting about 3,000 people and being efficient, it's actually disrespectful for my country," Cora said. "We see it that way. I know he probably doesn't feel that way. And like I said, hey man, thank you for helping us. He went down there, he did what he did. I hate talking about politics and all that, but I think this is more than politics." 

Trump tweeted Thursday morning about how the death toll had been exaggerated.

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...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018

.....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!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018

Cora said that while Trump is president and respects him, he doesn't agree with "a lot of stuff that he says about us." He added that it shouldn't be a political issue.

"You know, 3,000, six, 18. I don’t know. We will never know how many, how many we lost. I hate that people that make it a political issue. This is about human beings. The people that went through this, they know what happened."