No, Jose Andres isn’t begging for FEMA moneyby digby
God, everything is life isn’t about shilling for money. But I guess that’s how we think in 2017:
The Trump administration has found itself in a public feud with celebrity chef Jose Andrés, who has helped cook and deliver more than 2 million meals to help out the citizens of hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico.
One FEMA official tells BuzzFeed that the agency is dismissing Andrés’ criticisms of the agency as being made by a “colorful guy who gets a lot of exposure” and “a businessman looking for stuff to promote his business.”
FEMA says that Andres, who was contracted by FEMA to help make meals to give to Puerto Ricans trying to recover from the destruction left by Hurricane Maria in September, was unhappy that his organization, the World Central Kitchen, was not given a long-term contract to help people harmed by the hurricane. The agency says that it could only offer World Central Kitchen short-term two-week contracts, or else it would have to go through the formal federal bidding process.
However, Andrés tells BuzzFeed that it’s not right for FEMA to claim that his criticisms stem from purely selfish motivations.
“For them to say I was a businessman trying to make a buck, whoever said that should be very ashamed of themselves,” Andrés told the publication.
Yes they should. He is one of the most famous chefs in th world. He doesn’t need money.
He is not a friend of Trump’s though, that’s for sure. He’s one of the chefs who backed out of he contract at Trump’s DC hotel after he demagogued immigrants and Trump sued. So there’s history there. But Andres is certainly not feeding people in Puerto Rico and complaining about the response because he wants money from the government. That’s just ridiculous.
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