Trump raises questions about Cruz’s ‘precarious’ Canadian birth

In what his critics say is in response to the latest poll numbers in Iowa, Donald Trump played the birther card against Ted Cruz, saying his rival’s Canadian birthplace was a “very precarious” issue.

Trump in an interview said that Republicans would have to ask themselves if they want to have a candidate who might be in court for years. I have to reprimand”, Trump said, before adding blandly, “How dare you.

Cruz has received numerous questions about his eligibility for the US presidency although most experts in constitutional law agree there would be no issue. It’s a claim supported by centuries of legal precedent: “The Naturalization Act of 1790 expanded the class of citizens at birth to include children born overseas of citizen mothers as long as the father had at least been resident in the United States at some point”, they write.

The key statute of the order – which led to Aldo Maro Bellei, who was born in Italy to an American mother, to lose his citizenship – is that the citizen must live in the USA for five years between the ages of 14 and 28.

The senator has contended that he is an American citizen based on that criteria – and he has released his birth certificate and renounced his Canadian citizenship since being elected to Capitol Hill in 2012.

However, in this scenario, a decision from a federal court, likely the Supreme Court, would not take a “long time” as Trump suggests, since the high court would likely take jurisdiction over the case.

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.

This week a great hue and kerfuffle has been raised by Marco Rubio’s Republican presidential rivals because, on Monday, a New York Times reporter photographed Rubio’s feet in a pair of shiny, somewhat flamboyant boots.

Cruz campaign spokesman Rick Tyler said Cruz never had, nor applied for, a Canadian passport.

Trump on Tuesday pondered aloud that maybe, just maybe, Cruz was wrong. In 2013 at The Daily Caller, Cato Institute legal analyst Ilya Shapiro noted that any person who is a citizen at birth is eligibile regardless of his own birthplace.

Last cycle’s Iowa Caucus victor Rick Santorum said Tuesday that the current poll-leader in Iowa, Ted Cruz, is inexperienced and a grandstander. Trump is once again alleging that his hated foe might not really be an eligible USA citizen. Cruz was born in Calgary, Canada, in 1970 while his parents were working in the oil industry. According to the Rutland Herald, the lawsuit names state officials as defendants.