Remember that time Trump was considering running attack ads about the Cubs?
Ah, March 2016. The month now feels like a distant memory — a time when Ted Cruz and John Kasich were still in the Republican race, a time before Kyle Schwarber tore his ACL and LCL and got knocked from the Cubs' lineup for an entire season. A time, also, when Donald Trump was considering running attack ads against Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts and his hard-luck team.
The feud began when Trump tweeted that "I hear the Rickets [sic] family, who own the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $'s against me. They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!" Ricketts' parents had in fact donated $3 million to an anti-Trump super PAC, Our Principles. None of that was secret, though, or had anything directly to do with Tom Ricketts.
"It's a little surreal when Donald Trump threatens your mom," Ricketts said after the tweet went out. He added, "If we had something to hide, you people would have found it by now. I have no idea [what Trump was talking about]."
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Nevertheless, Trump doubled down on his comments the next month, threatening to run attack ads "about their baseball team":
Trump would go on to win the primary. The Ricketts family would go on to pledge $1 million to him.
And the Cubs? Well, the rest of that story is history.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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