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Trump Warns: I'll Publicize The 'Rotten Job' Ricketts Family Is Doing With The Cubs

(CBS) – The war of words continues between Donald Trump and the Ricketts family over the presidential candidate's claims he has been disrespected by the owners of the Chicago Cubs.

Trump last month accused the family of secretly spending money on initiatives aimed at bringing down his presidential bid. In a Feb. 22 tweet he said ominously, "They better be careful."

So, what did he mean by that?

"Well, it means that I'll start spending on them. I'll start taking ads telling them all what a rotten job they're doing with the Chicago Cubs," Trump told the Washington Post editorial board on Monday.

He added: "I mean, they are spending on me. I mean, so am I allowed to say that? I'll start doing ads about their baseball team. That it's not properly run or that they haven't done a good job in the brokerage business lately."

Trump said the family members are "spending vicious."

"I don't even know these people. Those Ricketts," he added.

Members of the Ricketts' family, led by Tom Ricketts, purchased the Cubs in 2009. Ricketts' father, Joe, is the founder of Ameritrade, but he does not have any active role in the baseball club. Joe Ricketts is active politically, spending his wealth on efforts to curtail government spending.

This January, Joe Ricketts' wife, Marlene, contributed $3 million to the anti-Trump Our Principles political action committee, according to federal election campaign reports. Lake Forest businessman Richard Uihlein contributed $7,500. The group paid for anti-Trump ads and mailers before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries, according to the campaign reports.

Tom Ricketts has said some of his family members are active politically, but it's not a secret and it's their business.

"It's a little surreal when Donald Trump threatens your mom," Ricketts said last month. "The fact is whether it's my mom or my dad on his Ending Spending stuff or my sister on marriage equality issues or my brothers and what they do or what we do with the team, we are pretty much are an open book. We stand up for what we believe in. We support the causes we think are important. That is what America should be. That is who we are."

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