Trump Rejects Death Toll in Puerto Rico From Hurricane Maria Without evidence, Trump called the number of 3,000 deaths incorrect and said it was a plot by Democrats to make him “look as bad as possible.” In a tweet, Trump said when he left the Island after the storm, Puerto Rico had anywhere from "6 to 18 deaths." He then said, "a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000." Last month, Puerto Rico’s governor raised Maria’s official death toll from 64 to 2,975 after an independent study. The study says original estimates were low because doctors on the island had not been trained to properly classify deaths after a natural disaster.