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Trump: Cubs’ owners ‘better be careful’

Donald Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, isn't happy that a member of the prominent Ricketts family has bankrolled an effort to thwart his campaign. And he took to Twitter on Monday to warn the Chicago Cubs owners to "be careful."

The family is "secretly spending $'s against me," Trump wrote. "They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!"

Family matriarch Marlene Ricketts' $3 million donation to the anti-Trump super PAC, Our Principles PAC, isn't exactly a secret. Campaign-finance reports filed over the weekend disclosed her as the super PAC's largest contributor. 

Joe Ricketts, Marlene Ricketts' husband, is the founder of online brokerage firm TD Ameritrade and a longtime Republican activist and donor. Their son, Pete, is Nebraska's governor.

Trump's tweet prompted National Review editor Rich Lowry to question whether the billionaire "already has an enemies list and is this the man we want in charge of the IRS?" 

In another tweet, Lowry said Trump's opponents should not be "cowed by his cheap bullying."

Of course, there's no love lost between Trump and Lowry, who last month published a special anti-Trump issue of the conservative magazine.

Katie Packer, who runs Our Principles PAC, said Trump's tweet "speaks directly to where he has taken the tone of this campaign. He bullies and harasses." 

"He says things like this so other donors won't want to stick their necks out," she added.

In an email to USA TODAY, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks called Packer's criticism "rich."

"Someone spending millions of dollars to disparage Mr. Trump characterizes his defense as bullying? This individual has never met Mr. Trump and clearly does not understand his policies or message, which has resonated all across the country. This is everything that is wrong with our broken system. Mr. Trump will continue to tell it like is, especially where corrupt, out of touch establishment elites are involved." 

Packer, a former campaign aide to the GOP's 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney who said she has received death threats over the PAC's actions, said she does not plan to retreat from plans to run ads and distribute campaign literature that highlight Trump's previous statements on issues, such as abortion and health care.

"If you've got an issue with what we are saying, talk to Donald Trump," she said. "He's the one who said these things."

Packer said "new fundraising avenues" have opened up after Trump's first-place showing Saturday in the South Carolina primary and the PAC was making decisions Monday about where to spend next.

 

 

 

 

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