Donald Trump, who once (well, constantly) challenged Barack Obama’s eligibility to be president based on his birthplace, is now doing the same thing to Ted Cruz, his rival for the Republican nomination.
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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. “How do you have a candidate where there’s something over the head of the Party-and that individual” Trump asked.
The senator added: “I like Donald Trump”.
In what has now become his signature style, Trump “reports” on something he says is already occurring in order to stir up a discussion. Cruz has not let that gone unmentioned during a six-day, 28-county bus tour of Iowa that began Monday.
Cruz in recent years has released a copy of his birth certificate and has renounced his citizenship in Canada. Trump is afraid of being embarrassed by Cruz in Iowa. Cruz took to social media, using Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) to post a link to a particular video taken from a 1970s TV show where a character ski over a shark.
Despite being previously compared by pundits to 2012 presidential flameouts such as pizza magnate Herman Cain and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Trump’s campaign has entered 2016 firmly leading the GOP race, according to a January 5 poll conducted by NBC News/SurveyMonkey. Cruz appears to be doing well with evangelical voters who are a critical voting bloc in the Hawkeye State’s caucuses, which may be why Trump is turning up the volume on his attacks.
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 US for five years between the ages of 14 and 28.
Legal scholars agree that Cruz meets the Constitution’s natural-born citizenship requirement, though it is untested in the courts. And there is no question Cruz was a US citizen at the time of his birth, because although he was born in Alberta, Canada, in 1970, his mother was born in Delaware.
Cruz has avoided engaging with Trump’s critiques so far. Trump is obviously attacking Cruz because the senator from Texas could very well beat Trump in Iowa.
Cruz’s campaign has previously been on the air in New Hampshire with two minor spots, including an ad during the first GOP debate in September that used a scorpion to portray the peril of Islamic terrorism.
Among overall California voters, not just Republicans, 73 percent say they hold an unfavorable opinion of Trump than say this about Cruz (51%) or Rubio (46%).
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Trump then vowed that his wall would be built better, bigger, stronger and cheaper.
