Trump vs. Cruz: Eligibility questions justified? [Geraldo Rivera backs Trump, again]

Fox News ^ | January 7, 2016 | Sean Hannity transcript

[Cincinatus' Wife]

"...HANNITY: ..... The relevant code is U.S. Code 1401 and it says the following as it relates to nationals and citizens of the United States at birth. "The following shall be nationals and citizens,"and it goes on,"a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents, one of whom is a citizen of the U.S. who has been physically present in the U.S. or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year prior to the birth of such a person and the other of whom is a national but not a citizen of the United States."

Let's go to section G. It says,"a person born outside of the geographical limits of the U.S. and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien and other a citizen of the U.S. who prior to the birth of such person was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or period totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of 14 years." Geraldo...

GERALDO RIVERA..:What is the glaring omission, Sean? You have to see that what is not in those statutes? What is not in those statutes is the definition of a natural born citizen.

HANNITY:Oh, stop.

[snip]

RIVERA:It won't be a declaratory judgment. Trump is wrong about that. You just can't ask a court for a declaratory judgment. There has to be a lawsuit brought. It can be brought by Trump. Trump has standing. He's personally aggrieved by Ted Cruz running...

RIVERA:I think that Senator Ted Cruz is a great conservative who can run against an incumbent liberal, Justin Trudeau in Canada.

HANNITY:Oh, good grief. I don't know what to make of all this.Everyone's gone birther here on us.Thank you all for being with us....

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Sept 2015: Liberal Journo Geraldo Rivera Defends Donald Trump; Agrees Hewitt's Questions Were 'Gotcha'

"This is something you don't see often - Fox News contributor and unofficial advocate of illegal immigrants, Geraldo Rivera actually defended GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump on "gotcha questions" on foreign policy from an interview he did with radio host Hugh Hewitt."....

[TheCipher]

Hannity keeps on quoting the wrong version of section (g) of the code. He is quoting the part that applies to those born after Nov 1986. He should be quoting the one that applies to those born between 1957 and Nov 1986. Not that it matters as far as Cruz is concerned - he inherits citizenship under the earlier version, but it does matter when applied to Obama. Reading the code he cites, people would be under the wrong impression that Obama would inherit citizenship also.

[grania]

One point their conversation brought out is that laws that apply to one being a citizen do not assure that person is also a natural born citizen.

Another point is that some one who has standing would have to bring it up in court. If Cruz were to win the nomination, that would be his Democratic opponent, or perhaps someone going third party just to bog down a potential Cruz presidency in court. The Republicans, for whatever reason, didn't bring it up in court when McCain and Romney ran. Does anyone seriously thing that evil witch hillary and her coven wouldn't?

There's a problem. Obama brought us way down a slippery slope, and that was after coming up with (uncontested) proof that he was born in the US. Cruz wasn't. It has to be settled.

[Tzfat]

Another whacko has joined the Trump whackos.

[TwelveOfTwenty]

It has to be settled.

That's the bottom line. We need to get this resolved one way or another BEFORE the voting starts.

[eartick]

I had figured that boat was full by now.

They just keep poking the dead horse looking for fresh maggots to eat

[cableguymn]

It’s a non-issue they are trying to make an issue out of.

[cripplecreek]

They have some kind of bizarre fantasy that the rest of us will resign ourselves to voting for far left Trump.

If this doesn't work I suspect they'll try more extreme methods.

[Godebert]

Statutory law is irrelevant. Natural Law determines who is a natural born Citizen.

Note the reference to Natural Law in the first sentence of our Declaration of Independence.

It is crystal clear that the Founding Fathers used the Natural Law definition of 'natural born Citizen' when they wrote Article II. By invoking "The Laws of Nature and Nature's God" the 56 signers of the Declaration incorporated a legal standard of freedom into the forms of government that would follow.

President John Quincy Adams, writing in 1839, looked back at the founding period and recognized the true meaning of the Declaration's reliance on the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." He observed that the American people's "charter was the Declaration of Independence. Their rights, the natural rights of mankind. Their government, such as should be instituted by the people, under the solemn mutual pledges of perpetual union, founded on the self-evident truth's proclaimed in the Declaration."

The Constitution, Vattel, and “Natural Born Citizen”: What Our Framers Knew

The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law

The Supreme Court of the United States has never applied the term “natural born citizen” to any other category than “those born in the country of parents who are citizens thereof”.

MINOR V. HAPPERSETT IS BINDING PRECEDENT AS TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL DEFINITION OF A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.

The Harvard Law Review Article Taken Apart Piece by Piece and Utterly Destroyed

Citizenship Terms Used in the U.S. Constitution - The 5 Terms Defined & Some Legal Reference to Same

"The citizenship of no man could be previous to the declaration of independence, and, as a natural right, belongs to none but those who have been born of citizens since the 4th of July, 1776."....David Ramsay, 1789.

A Dissertation on Manner of Acquiring Character & Privileges of Citizen of U.S.-by David Ramsay-1789

The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)

The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law

Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume 20 - Use of The Law of Nations by the Constitutional Convention

[TheCipher]

I wasn’t commenting on natural born. I was just commenting on the inheritance of citizenship itself. I disagree with Hannity’s analysis of it, but if he is going to cite a law, he should at least cite the proper one.

[RC one]

he inherits citizenship under the earlier version

Certainly. He does not inherit natural born citizenship however and as Geraldo pointed out, none of the pertinent laws cited made any mention at all of "natural born citizenship" which we all agree is significantly different from citizenship.

[Macoozie]

Hannity?
He’s still around?
listened years ago.
He’s was like a parrot, un-informed about issues, saying the same phrases over and over again.

Geraldo?
Best work was his reporting on the horrific treatment of our FELLOW CITIZENS at Willowbrook, not much since.

Maybe he can talk about marriage and fidelity with Trump.

I’m a Birther (Constitutionalist).
If you disagree with the issue, you are an ignorant tool.

[TheCipher]

See post #10

[pookie18]

Geraldo must be warming to Trump’s immigration policy ;-)

[Timber Rattler]

We need to get this resolved one way or another BEFORE the voting starts.

It was resolved with Obama.

[Hugin]

That's the bottom line. We need to get this resolved one way or another BEFORE the voting starts.

That would be nice, but it won't happen. They only body that can resolve it is SCOTUS, and they don't work that quickly. We'd be lucky if it got resolved before the general election. Meanwhile if Cruz were the nominee the Democrats could keep Cruz off the ballot in some states. By the time he sued and SCOTUS heard it, it could be after the election. Personally I think Cruz is eligible, and I don't buy that there is a difference between being born a citizen and being a natural born citizen. But nobody can say for certain, an obviously legal opinions vary. It's not settled law as Cruz has said, not either way.

[justlittleoleme]

MARK LEVIN explains that Ted Cruz IS a natural born citizen - 2013

But this is news because Trump is scared that he is losing IOWA.

---

Who is a natural-born citizen? Who, in other words, is a citizen at birth, such that that person can be a President someday?

The 14th Amendment defines citizenship this way: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." But even this does not get specific enough. As usual, the Constitution provides the framework for the law, but it is the law that fills in the gaps. The Constitution authorizes the Congress to do create clarifying legislation in Section 5 of the 14th Amendment; the Constitution, in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4, also allows the Congress to create law regarding naturalization, which includes citizenship.

Currently, Title 8 of the U.S. Code fills in the gaps left by the Constitution. Section 1401 defines the following as people who are "citizens of the United States at birth:"

• Anyone born inside the United States *
• Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person's status as a citizen of the tribe
• Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.
• Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national
• Any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year
• Any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21
• Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)
• A final, historical condition: a person born before 5/24/1934 of an alien father and a U.S. citizen mother who has lived in the U.S.

* There is an exception in the law — the person must be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. This would exempt the child of a diplomat, for example, from this provision.

Anyone falling into these categories is considered natural-born, and is eligible to run for President or Vice President.

[Godebert]

It was resolved with Obama.

You can't change the Constitution via illegal Usurpation.

[Hugin]

Geraldo said despite the fact that he gets very angry about Trump on immigration he thinks he would be a very good president. Says Trump is one of his two top choices.

[ThePatriotsFlag]

If you are a US citizen and in the military and deployed overseas and you have a baby there...s/he is NOT a citizen? C’mon. How many kids are born to military families and state dept people overseas? All of them are now illegal aliens? I’m for Trump, but this is rediculous...especially since a sitting “president,” for seven years, has ignored this requirement, going so far as to try to prove citizenship with a photoshopped birth certificate. It is a post-constitutional non-issue, Obama tore that page out of the Constitution and the REPUBLICANS and ‘NEWS” MEDIA were his accomplices.