Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora is not a fan of United States President Donald Trump's controversial tweets about Puerto Rico.
On Thursday morning, Trump sent out a series of tweets expressing his belief that the number of people estimated killed when Hurricane Maria hit the U.S. territory last year - close to 3,000 Puerto Rican citizens - was 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, who hails from Caguas, Puerto Rico, addressed Trump's tweets before his Red Sox faced the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday, and had a rather harsh rebuke for the commander-in-chief.
"To be tweeting about 3,000 people and be efficient, it's actually disrespectful for my country," Cora said, according to Stephen Hewitt of the Boston Herald. "We see it that way. I know probably he doesn't feel that way. ... I hate talking about politics and all that, but I think this is more than politics. This is about a country that really suffered, we still, you see the hurricanes forming now. Everybody's panicking. It's not easy.
"One thing's for sure, and I told you guys before, one thing I'm proud, we're standing up on our own two feet. Like, 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. But you know it's a little bit kind of like frustrating that the topic keeps coming and coming and coming. What's the point, honestly?
"And I respect him. He's the president of the United States. But I don't agree with a lot of stuff that he says about us."
This past January, the Red Sox sent 10 tons of supplies to aid citizens of Puerto Rico who've been affected by last year's deadly hurricane season. Cora joined a large group of team employees who helped deliver the aid to his homeland.
On Thursday, Cora also took time to publicly thank multiple other teams - specifically, the Chicago Cubs, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and his former team, the Houston Astros - for sending additional supplies to Puerto Rico in the past year.
Cora is currently the only Puerto Rican-born manager in MLB, and just the third in history.