Trump Goes Birther, Part II: Ted Cruz’s Canadian Roots ‘Certainly a Concern’

Trump said in a Wednesday interview on Fox News that he wants Cruz to “get some kind of an order” from a court to block any potential lawsuit challenging his citizenship.

In an interview that aired on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday, Trump said, “I hope that’s not going to be a problem for him”, before adding “it’s a problem obviously for the Republicans”. Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, but his mother was a USA citizen, which he says meets the requirements to run.

Most legal experts believe Cruz easily meets the definition of a “natural-born American citizen” because his mother was an American.

The U.S. State Department addresses the issue of citizenship at birth by saying “a child born overseas to one U.S. citizen parent and one alien parent acquires U.S. citizenship at birth under Section 301(g) of the Immigaration and Nationality Act”.

Cruz in recent years has released a copy of his birth certificate and has renounced his citizenship in Canada.

The episode demonstrated a developing dynamic in the Republican race: Cruz doesn’t want a fight with Trump, but Trump is spoiling for one himself. Cruz was concluding the second day of a six-day swing through Iowa before the February 1 caucuses, while Trump was holding a rally in New Hampshire.

The Texas senator posted a clip of an iconic episode from the sitcom “Happy Days”, in which the character Fonzie jumps over a shark on water skis.

For what it’s worth, there is a general consensus among legal scholars that Cruz is eligible for the presidency.

Trump seemed to have been able to further cement his front-runner status, mainly because more than half of his supporters said that they are absolutely certain that they will vote for him, while fewer than a third admitted that they might change their preference later.

Trump is clearly toying with a dead-horse issue.

At 44 and 45, respectively, Rubio and Cruz are the youngest candidates in the 2016 field and the only Hispanics. Before announcing his candidacy, he was most politically concerned with questioning USA president Barack Obama’s birthplace.

Donald Trump appears on stage at the CNN Republican Presidential Debate in Simi Valley, California on September 16, 2015.

Still, some critics of Cruz have suggested taking the issue to court.

“I do like Ted Cruz, but not a lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba”, he said of the country where Cruz’s father, an evangelical preacher, was born.