Trump congratulates new Chicago police union president in tweet

President Donald Trump tweeted congratulations Sunday morning to John Catanzara, the new president of the Chicago police union on his election.

“He always ‘Gets the Job Done,’” the president said in the tweet.

Catanzara won a runoff election against incumbent Kevin Graham, the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 announced Friday, earning 4,709 votes to Graham’s 3,872.

Catanzara said Sunday he was told about the tweet by a friend and initially didn’t believe it but was “pleasantly surprised” upon seeing it himself.

“I would absolutely support him in any way, shape or form, [which] I can personally as the president of Lodge 7 alongside the larger umbrella of the Fraternal Order of Police, who obviously has the president’s back no matter what,” Catanzara told the Chicago Sun-Times. “He has been the policeman’s friend more than almost any other president in modern times, and it makes a difference when we’re getting beat up constantly from every other direction.”

Catanzara’s outward support of Trump has stirred controversy before.

In 2017, a photo of him holding an American flag in front of a sign reading, “I stand for the anthem, I love the American flag, I support my president and the 2nd Amendment,” went viral on social media. He was reprimanded at the time for violating department policy with the post.

Then in 2018, Catanzara wore a jersey with “Trump” on the back to a City Hall meeting discussing community oversight of Chicago police.

He said Sunday that doing so was meant to “get noticed, which it did,” but that he won’t do so again.

“I hope he gets re-elected all the way,” Catanzara said. “But I’m not some blind, Kool Aid-drinking Trump-ite who doesn’t see faults in everybody, including myself.”