![Ricketts](/wp-content/archive/images/2020/0220/C202002-312-Rahms-Payback-Tour-Ricketts.jpg)
The Ricketts family
Rahm rejected their ask for $200 million in subsidies to renovate Wrigley Field. “And guess what? Just a few years later [they] paid for the entire thing themselves, and they’re making out just fine.”
![Adirondack chair](/wp-content/archive/images/2020/0220/C202002-312-Rahms-Payback-Tour-Adirondack-chair.jpg)
Staffers who managed the Adirondack chair installation on the Riverwalk
“Six weeks later there were still no chairs. I called them again. They said they were still evaluating. ‘Okay. Stop evaluating now and go to Crate & Barrel and buy forty chairs today.’ ”
![Wirtz](/wp-content/archive/images/2020/0220/C202002-312-Rahms-Payback-Tour-Wirtz.jpg)
Rocky Wirtz
“He threatened to cancel his plans to put the [Blackhawks’] training facility in the city as an act of retribution for not extending the tax break. I turned up the heat on him a bit. The Blackhawks’ new downtown training facility is really beautiful.”
![Rauner](/wp-content/archive/images/2020/0220/C202002-312-Rahms-Payback-Tour-Rauner.jpg)
Bruce Rauner
“Our fight became personal and acrimonious. We started as good friends, but that is not how our relationship ended.”
![Klein](/wp-content/archive/images/2020/0220/C202002-312-Rahms-Payback-Tour-Klein.jpg)
Former transportation commissioner Gabe Klein
“Each member of my team … had a homework assignment to bring one bold idea to the [former U.S. secretary of transportation Ray] LaHood meeting. Gabe had forgotten his homework.”
The federal government
“Slow and sclerotic,” “sclerotic, partisan, and broken,” “sclerotic, clumsy, inflexible, wounded, and weak, unable to move forward.”
![Trump](/wp-content/archive/images/2020/0220/C202002-312-Rahms-Payback-Tour-Trump.jpg)
The Trump administration
“A disastrous anomaly,” “constant turmoil, shadiness, and sheer ineptitude,” “chaotic and incompetent.”
![Trump Tower](/wp-content/archive/images/2020/0220/C202002-312-Rahms-Payback-Tour-Trump-Tower.jpg)
The Trump Tower sign
“Ugly.”
The Nation City: Why Mayors Are Now Running the World comes out February 25.