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After being attacked by Jeb Bush for his use of eminent domain in past real estate dealings, Donald Trump on Monday called the Bush family hypocrites
He cited former President George W. Bush's wielding of the law to help acquire land for a new baseball stadium in Texas
After being attacked by Jeb Bush for his use of eminent domain in past real estate dealings, Donald Trump on Monday called the Bush family hypocrites, citing former President George W. Bush’s wielding of the law to help acquire land for a new baseball stadium in Texas.
In 1991, Bush and his business partners created what ESPN called a “quasi-governmental agency” imbued with the power to seize 13 acres of private property as they sought to build a new home for the team they owned, Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers.
“When he talks about the taking of land – the Bush family used the taking of land, eminent domain, on Texas stadium. So you look at this kind of stuff, it’s absolutely amazing,” Trump said during an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Monday. “How can he criticize me for using eminent domain when his own family used it?”
Jeb Bush was not personally involved in the transaction that eventually landed a new ballpark in Arlington, Texas.
Still, Trump skewered the former Florida governor for, as he suggested, not knowing his own family’s history.
“He didn’t know that they used private – that they privatized it,” Trump said, “He didn’t know that, but they used it on Texas stadium, having to do with eminent domain. And he didn’t even know that.”
During the Republican debate on Saturday night, Bush accused Trump of using the law to evict an elderly woman from her Atlantic City home so he could build a “limousine parking lot.”
“Quiet,” Trump told Bush as he attempted to brush off the accusation.