Tribe isn't the one likely to be cornered. The difference with Obama is that he was born in the U.S., and that's the key distinction as regards Cruz. Our Supreme Court has articulated that persons born in the U.S. are natural born citizens needing no naturalization. Whereas any person born outside the U.S. is made a citizen only by way of naturalization:
"Every person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization. A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized, either by treaty, as in the case of the annexation of foreign territory, or by authority of Congress, exercised either by declaring certain classes of persons to be citizens, as in the enactments conferring citizenship upon foreign-born children of citizens, or by enabling foreigners individually to become citizens by proceedings in the judicial tribunals, as in the ordinary provisions of the naturalization acts." U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 696, 702, 703 (1898).
And, further, Tribe could hold up the case of Mario Bellei, who, like Cruz was born abroad to a citizen mother and alien father. When Bellei did not subsequently meet the residency requirements under the stature giving him citizenship at birth, the U.S. revoked his citizenship. In upholding that decision, the SCOTUS found that Bellei's citizenship did not meet the "Constitutional definition" of citizen, and thus was subject to revocation without affirmative relonquishment by Bellei.
So Tribe could ask the question "if Mario Bellei was ruled to have a mere statutory citizenship that didn't meet the Constitutional definition of citizenship, how can you claim you meet the Article I standard for citizenship?"
I don't see how Cruz answers that one other than to toss up babbling avoidance.
Make the above “Article II,” “relinquishment,” and 169 U.S. 649 for WKA.