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You do understand that the founders who became president were constitutionally grandfathered in, right?

No, they weren't. And this is agreed on by every competent historian throughout US history.

The founders who became President were considered to be natural born citizens of the United States. They were natural born subjects of the colonies, and when those colonies became independent States, they did not stop being natural born subjects of those States (and hence of the United States as a whole).

And when we changed the word "subject" to "citizen," all "natural born subjects" quite naturally became "natural born citizens."

This understanding is also in complete harmony with US citizenship as explained by James Madison, the Father of the Constitution.

The grandfather clause was NOT passed to make George Washington eligible. No serious historian has EVER claimed that.

Instead, historians agree that the clause was passed to make eligible Alexander Hamilton, James Wilson, and other foreign-born patriots who had similarly risked their lives and fortunes.

Here are a few quotes that establish the point. There are MANY more.

“It was doubtless introduced (for it has now become by lapse of time merely nominal, and will soon become wholly extinct) out of respect to those distinguished revolutionary patriots, who were born in a foreign land, and yet had entitled themselves to high honours in their adopted country….”

- United States Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution (1833)

“The exception as to those who were citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, was justly due to those men who had united themselves with the fate of the new nation, and rendered eminent services in achieving its independence ; and is, necessarily, of limited continuance.”

- James Bayard, A brief exposition of the Constitution of the United States, pg. 96 (1833)

“Why was this exception then made? From gratitude to those distinguished foreigners who had taken part with us during the Revolution.”

- John Seely Hart, A Brief Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, pg. 71 (1860)