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]."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
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.
-
Inside The Peninsula, London’s first billion-pound hotelThe Week Recommends As the capital’s super-luxury hotel scene continues to expand, the respected brand is still setting the standard
-
AI is making houses more expensiveUnder the radar Homebuying is also made trickier by AI-generated internet listings
-
Crossword: October 22, 2025The Week's daily crossword
-
Hungary’s Krasznahorkai wins Nobel for literatureSpeed Read László Krasznahorkai is the author of acclaimed novels like ‘The Melancholy of Resistance’ and ‘Satantango’
-
Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91Speed Read She rose to fame following her groundbreaking field research with chimpanzees
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's viewSpeed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
-
Charlamagne Tha God irks Trump with Epstein talkSpeed Read The radio host said the Jeffrey Epstein scandal could help 'traditional conservatives' take back the Republican Party
-
CBS cancels Colbert's 'Late Show'Speed Read 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is ending next year
