Voted off the island
Priebus out, Trump hires new chief of staff
President Trump on Friday vowed to wipe out the murderous MS-13 gang during a visit to a violence-scarred section of Long Island — and he also came gunning for Mayor de Blasio.
“We’re going to restore safety to our streets and peace to our communities, and we’re going to destroy the vile criminal cartel MS-13 and many other gangs,” Trump told an audience of law-enforcement officers at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood.
The commander in chief then appeared to deliver a blistering attack on de Blasio, slamming an unnamed “pathetic mayor” who is hindering cops in the fight against criminal gangs.
“I’ve met great police who aren’t allowed to do their job because they have a pathetic mayor,” Trump said, eliciting cheers from the crowd.
Reacting to crowd’s approval, he added, “Were you applauding for someone in particular?”
The mayor’s camp later said in an e-mail to supporters that it was clear Trump was referring to de Blasio — and tried to use the call-out to collect a few bucks.
“Chip in $3 to Bill de Blasio’s re-election campaign as a way of saying we will never allow Donald Trump or one of his supporters to lead the largest and most diverse city in America,” wrote campaign manager Rick Fromberg.
Hizzoner wasn’t around to hear the diss in person.
Despite flying 4,000 miles to protest Trump in Hamburg, Germany, earlier this month, de Blasio didn’t bother to make the short drive out to Brentwood to do it again.
He instead darted off to Boston, then announced he was traveling to remote Eastport, Maine, as far east as he could get without leaving the country.
De Blasio’s police force also was nowhere to be seen in the crowd. NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said his brass were too busy with promotion ceremonies to take part.
The 500 local law-enforcement members who did attend cheered as Trump railed against MS-13, which has committed a string of murders in the area — including the slayings of two teenage girls last September and the massacre of four young men last April.
The crowd roared in approval when Trump told them they don’t have to be gentle when arresting “thugs.”
“When you see these thugs
being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough. I said please don’t be too nice,” he said.
“Like when you put somebody into a car and you protect their head? . . . I said you can take the hand away, OK?” he said.
The previous night, NYPD cops busted two MS-13 members on Long Island for a murder in Queens.
Roberto “Splinter” Abrego, 23, and Jose “Smoker” Alvarenga, 27, both of Hempstead, were charged with murdering Fernando Gonzalez-Chavez, 39, last May.
Gonzalez-Chavez was leaving a bar when he was set upon by the two gang members and Alvarenga shot him in the chest, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce.
The motive was still under investigation but seemed to have stemmed from an internal feud in the Long Island branch of the gang, cops said.
“We’re still peeling this thing back. There may be more arrests. We do have an MS-13 set in the city, out in South Jamaica . . . This looks like it’s a Hempstead issue, visited upon the city,” Boyce said Friday.