Dave Smith on Vivek v Trump

Dave Smith did a podcast about an hour long, on youtube.

He talks about the Vivek v Trump thing. I wanted to post about this primarily because of a comment in the comment section that I found interesting. It states that Trump sees Vivek as a real threat, that Vivek has surged in Iowa, that Trump supports this pipeline idea in Iowa that will use a lot of eminent domain to take land, such as farm land, and Vivek opposes this idea. And, that polls have been omitting Vivek's name. In short, there may be things in the minds of Iowa voters that we are not accounting for, and perhaps the results will be different than expected.

I'm not a Vivek fan, but this inside stuff was interesting and I was surprised to see Trump supporting something in a state like Iowa, that would use a lot of eminent domain.

Trump did get an endorsement from the guy mentioned, so that is certainly true, here is the endorsement.
78% of Iowans oppose eminent domain for this pipeline, link to that article.

Here's the comment, it's pretty long:
Trump attacked Vivek for two reasons.



First, Trump received an endorsement on Saturday morning from Bruce Rastetter—the CEO of Summit Carbon Solutions—who supports the carbon capture pipeline projects in Iowa. Vivek is the only major candidate who has publicly opposed the carbon capture pipeline projects and use of eminent domain. This is one of the major reasons Vivek has seen a surge in support in Iowa from former Trump and Ron DeSantis supporters. A lot of powerful people are backing these pipeline projects.



Second, many people now think Vivek will win the Iowa caucus. Four of Iowa’s top constitutional conservatives in the state legislature endorsed Vivek this week—one of them switched to him from Ron DeSantis. Vivek has done close to 400 events here which is more events than all the other candidates combined. Trump has done around 30. Nikki Haley cancelled her events this week because no one showed up while Vivek was still doing 4-10 events per day even in the blizzard and his events were all packed to the brim. Many Iowans also appreciate Vivek for supporting them on the carbon capture pipelines being forcibly built across their lands. Trump is clearly in support of these projects because he accepted an endorsement from people like Bruce Rastetter who is in favor of these pipelines.



One of the prominent House members who switched his endorsement from Ron to Vivek went on Fox News yesterday and said that the polls were off because many of his constituents reported that Vivek's name was not even mentioned in the polls. When pollsters called them to do the polls, they were asked whether they supported Trump, Ron, or Nikki, and when they responded saying "Vivek", the pollster said that was not an option. This was even reported in the Iowa Standard on January 9. That is why Trump attacked Vivek. It is not because he expects Vivek to drop out and endorse him. It is because he legitimately sees Vivek as a threat to the nomination, in addition to the fact that his donors support the carbon capture pipelines in Iowa and Vivek has spoken out against it and highlighted the issue on the national stage.