This is CBS. I on the world. I'm John Batchel. Puerto Rico, part of the conversation in the closing hours of the election of 2024 because of events at Madison Square Garden and also because the clarity of what Puerto Rico represents in 2024 has been lost. And thanks to Mary Anastasio Grady, writing in her column for the Wall Street Journal

editorial board, and now am as up-to-date as any as to why Puerto Rico continues to struggle,

why Puerto Rico continues to be a source of despair for people who either were born there or travel there or wonder about

a colony of the United States of America that has ambitions.

And yet, Mary, a very good evening to you.

You introduce a story that you told me many years ago about the debt overhang in Puerto Rico that was cleared up in 2016

the last year of Mr. Obama's administration and when Donald Trump was elected in late 2016.

What is the Promesa Act, Puerto Rico Oversight Management and Economic Stability Act of 2016. Good evening to you.

Well, good evening, John. Back then, and it seems like 100 years ago, it was actually about a decade ago,

the government in Puerto Rico was spending recklessly and running up huge amounts of debt and deficit.

And they got to a point where the governor, who was basically a Democrat, Garcia Padilla,

decided that he couldn't pay and he wasn't going to pay.

So he announced that there was going to be a write-down of the bonds that Puerto Rico had issued.

And at the time, I think that because Puerto Rico did not have the ability to declare bankruptcy,

just like U.S. states cannot declare bankruptcy, he was going to have to

sit down and hammer things out with the bondholders. And he didn't want to do that because they

were going to be able to take property from him and basically, you know, make sure that they were

made whole. And so he appealed to Washington and President Obama signed

legislation, bipartisan legislation from the Congress, which said, okay, Puerto Rico, you can

default on your debt and restructure it, and turned around to the bondholders and said,

and you will have to take a haircut.

So they created this oversight board because, you know, there are lots of people like me

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