Good response, Trump cleverly raised it, Cruz cleverly responded.

Here’s a short comment in the Harvard Law Review as to the law of what ‘natural born citizen’ means. Natural born covers people born here or born of American citizen parents. Cruz’s mother was an American citizen. The point of the stricture was to prevent foreign influence from seizing the Presidency.

And more:

According to 8 U.S.C. §1401, the class of people considered “nationals and citizens of the United States at birth” includes the following:

(g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years

I can’t find a year-by-year timeline for Cruz’s mother but she was born and raised in Delaware and graduated from Rice University in Texas, which should take care of all of the temporal requirements listed above. I’m a little surprised that Cruz didn’t mention the statute in the clip below, choosing instead to reference John McCain, George Romney, and Barry Goldwater. They were each born outside the U.S. too, but if I’m not mistaken, each was born to parents both of whom were U.S. citizens. (McCain is also a natural-born citizen under rules granting that status to children of servicemen and servicewomen born abroad while their parent is serving.)

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