Over the past few weeks, Donald Trump has faced criticism for his stance on eminent domain from numerous conservatives including the Club for Growth, Rand Paul, and numerous scholars on the right. On Tuesday during Special Report, Bret Baier asked Donald Trump his opinion on eminent domain.
Trump called it “wonderful.”
I think eminent domain, for massive projects, for instance, you’re going to create thousands of jobs and you have somebody that’s in the way—and you pay that person far more—don’t forget eminent domain, they get a lot of money. And you need a house in a certain location because you’re going to build this massive development that’s going to employ thousands of people, or you’re going to build a factory that without this little house, you can’t build the factory. I think eminent domain is fine. Now the club for growth doesn’t like it because of me. They came to my office, right upstairs, they said would you give us $1 million—put it in writing…”
Baier followed up, adding, “in 2005, you said you agree with the Kelo [v. New London] case in the U.S. Supreme Court, 100%. That basically upholds eminent domain.”
Trump replied:
Later in the conversation, Trump added, “if you have a road or highway, if you have a factory and you have thousands of jobs and you need eminent domain, it’s called economic development.”
When Baier noted that Bernie Sanders had suggested “the result of this decision will be that working families and poor people will see their property turned over to corporate interests and wealthy developers,” Trump disagreed.
Trump added, “I fully understand the conservative approach, but I don’t think it was explained to most conservatives.” You can watch the full exchange here.
Eminent domain is the process whereby government takes a person’s property for public use, and compensates them justly for that property. It is sometimes used to build roads, bridges, and the like. In more controversial uses, government takes a person’s property, doesn’t always justly compensate them, and gives their property to a business. Such was the case in the 1990s when Trump wanted to build a parking lot, and a woman didn’t want to give up her home. Trump tried to use government to take her home so that he could build a parking lot.
Executive vice president of the Cato Institute, David Boaz, wrote in The Guardian:
…
Trump turned to a government agency – the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) – to take Coking’s property. CRDA offered her $250,000 for the property – one-fourth of what another hotel builder had offered her a decade earlier. When she turned that down, the agency went into court to claim her property under eminent domain so that Trump could pave it and put up a parking lot.
After several years in court, and with the help of the Institute for Justice, Ms. Coking won. The better-known Kelo v. New London case followed several years later, wherein the Supreme Court decided “that states can take property from one owner and give it to another to re-develop for a higher, better (read: more lucrative) use.”
