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Chance The Rapper Exposed Rauner As Unable To Do His Job, Rahm Says

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River Front Tower is is a "grand statement of optimism, strength and power" in Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said.
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DNAinfo/Heather Cherone

WEST LOOP — One day after Grammy Award winner Chance The Rapper gave the Chicago Public Schools $1 million, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said the 23-year-old musician "exposed" Gov. Bruce Rauner as a fraud.

"In the last 48 hours everyone has come to the conclusion that the emperor wears no clothes," Emanuel said, referring to the governor.

Rauner's spokesman Eleni Demertzis fired back, saying that Emanuel's attack on his one-time friend "sounds like someone has a Napoleon complex."

One day after putting the governor on blast for his role in the financial crisis engulfing the district, Chance weighed in on the name calling between the mayor and governor on Twitter, saying "this whole f------ thing is embarassing."

The $129 million CPS budget deficit — created when Rauner vetoed a bill that would have helped the school district pay its pension bill — threatens to force officials to end the school year on June 1 — 20 days early.

Rauner should have signed a bill in November that would have given Chicago's schools $215 million to help pay its bills, Chance said, echoing the mayor and school district officials.

"Do your job, Gov. Rauner," Chance said Monday at Westcott Elementary School in Chatham.

On Tuesday, Emanuel picked up that refrain — "just do your job," the mayor said — and urged the governor to introduce a balanced budget as well as legislation that changes the way Illinois funds education

"We are exhausted and exasperated by the rudderlessness under Gov. Rauner," Emanuel said.

Matt McGrath, a spokesman for the mayor, said "Chance figured out in 30 minutes" that the governor has no plan to help Chicago's schools or fund equitably fund Chicago's schools.

"Chance took the opportunity to say so," McGrath said.

Hours before Chance's press conference Monday, Rauner released his own plan to solve the budget crisis.

One proposal would give Emanuel the one-time authority to transfer TIF money from districts across the city to the school district "given the extraordinary mismanagement of both the city and CPS budgets," according to a memo released by Rauner's office.

The other option would be to add $215 million for Chicago's schools to the Illinois Senate's pension bill now pending in the General Assembly and removing it from the larger effort to reach an agreement on a state budget, according to the memo.

Emanuel rejected both proposals again on Tuesday, and a statement from his office called them "half-baked."

Emanuel said he did not talk to Chance about his discussions with the governor, which started Friday and stretched — unsuccessfully — through the weekend, and rejected suggestions that the rapper had been coached by members of his administration on what to say to Rauner and at the press conference.

Born Chancelor Bennett, the rapper's father, Ken Bennett, was once a deputy mayor in the Emanuel administration and now runs Choose Chicago, which encourages tourists to visit Chicago. The elder Bennett is also on the board of Social Works Chicago — which Chance co-founded and is using to collect donations for Chicago schools.

Suggestions that Emanuel is using Chance to score political points in his battle with the governor are "condescending" to the graduate of Jones College Prep, the mayor said.

"He could come to the conclusion that this is wrong all on his own," Emanuel said.

Chance publicly thanked Scooter Braun — famous for helping to launch Justin Bieber's music career — for donating to Social Works Chicago, as well as Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter and comedian Hannibal Buress, a Chicago native, for donating to Social Works Chicago for Chicago's schools.