If only Puerto Rico had a football team.

With 3.5 million Americans without power and in misery in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, the president found some time over the weekend to fulminate about football players who don’t kneel for the national anthem.

Managing to get even the typically staid and conservative NFL to attack him, Trump has succeeded in widening divisions in the country instead of healing them, all while Puerto Rico continues to suffer.

We are rapidly approaching the “Don, do something” point in the wretched aftermath of the hurricane. Instead, we are fed empty calorie junk food Tweets by a president who has somehow managed to get even the owner of the New England Patriots to turn against him.

And somehow this has all become an issue in the campaign for mayor.

After lamenting last week that she’s tired of being nagged by questions about her fellow Republican in the White House, GOP mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis suddenly embraced Trump head-on yesterday in a statement supporting him for taking on the NFL.

"President Trump is right; the NFL should fire or fine those who disrespect both our flag and the millions of fans who ultimately pay their salaries,’’ Malliotakis said in a statement that also encouraged fans to boycott games and merchandise.

With no NFL team playing in the five boroughs, it’s unclear what any of this has to do with the race for mayor beyond a candidate pandering to a base that she alienated by earlier trying to distance herself from Trump.

But if she wants to be mayor, Malliotakis has foolishly jumped on a bandwagon that’s careering off the road. Perhaps she’s auditioning for another job on Staten Island or a career as a conservative pundit but it would have been far smarter for her to issue a statement on almost anything else on a Sunday where football players were kneeling as Puerto Rico sat in the dark.

 

Bob Hardt