US VS THEM

Chicago Mayor Shades Trump With Gift to Pope Leo

It was quite the upgrade from Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s miniature crystal football.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has thrown shade at President Donald Trump during his visit to the Vatican.

Johnson hand-delivered a “gift chest” to Pope Leo filled with goodies from his hometown—such as local giardiniera and his parents’ DePaul University diplomas—but also politically charged gear like a hat that reads “Immigrants Make America Greater” and a sanctuary city pin.

That’s according to Block Club Chicago, which reports the chest contained more than two dozen items.

That makes the Democratic mayor’s gift far more impressive than the miniature crystal football that Secretary of State Marco Rubio gifted Leo last month—an offering that appeared to leave Leo stunned and nearly speechless, with him reacting by saying, “Wow, OK.”

Leo, 70, may have rolled his eyes at part of Johnson’s gift chest, too. It included a Chicago Cubs jersey and two Cubs hats, despite the fact that the pope is a diehard fan of the city’s rival MLB team on the South Side, the White Sox. He even attended Game 1 of the 2005 World Series to support them.

Johnson’s box included a White Sox hat, too, according to Block Club Chicago.

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Other goodies included in the box were a key to the city of Chicago and an invitation to deliver Mass in Grant Park; J.P. Graziano’s giardiniera; a brass tray with Chicago lakefront etchings; a Chicago flag; a ceremonial city street sign; and honey from the Chicago Cultural Center’s roof.

Also inside was a hat and jersey from the WNBA’s Chicago Sky, hats from the Chicago-based universities of DePaul and Loyola, as well as local merch that included a “Resisting tyrants since pharaoh” kippah, reports Block Club Chicago.

Johnson also reportedly included letters from families of detained migrants and a pin from one of the city’s “ICE Watch” groups that Trump and other Republicans, like senior White House adviser Stephen Miller, have railed against.

The not-so-subtle digs at the president come as both the pontiff and Johnson have publicly clashed with the White House.

Amid Trump’s immigration crackdown in the city that included the deployment of National Guard troops, the president wrote in October that Johnson “should be in jail” for not protecting ICE officers.

More recently, Trump called the blue city mayor “terrible” after an 18-year-old allegedly struck five police officers during a chaotic “teen takeover” over Memorial Day Weekend.

Leo has eviscerated the Trump administration not only for its inhumane treatment of migrants but also for starting a war with Iran that the Catholic Church has deemed is not justifiable.

Trump has responded with deranged attacks on the pope, claiming earlier this month that Leo was “endangering a lot of Catholics” and that “the pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and I don’t think that’s very good.”

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Josh FialloBreaking News Reporter

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