“His status as a natural-born citizen appears to be uncertain.”
Herein lies the rub. A Natural born Citizen’s status is never uncertain. There is no choice. It is what it is, without any gymnastics.
To be more precise, what is uncertain is the definition of “natural born citizen”, since the Constitution doesn’t spell it out.
For each particular definition, Cruz’s status is certain and unambiguous. But people disagree on the definition.
The case involving Bellei (circa 1970) pointed out that the citizenship of a person who is a citizen of the USA by virtue of a law of Congress in effect when he is born, can be lost by virtue of another law of Congress. This would imply that this is not NBC.
The founders didn’t want a president whose citizenship in the USA would be in doubt from any angle. While it is exceedingly unlikely now that Cruz could lose citizenship, maybe a law that says if you failed to comply with some other law affirming citizenship (like has been bandied about for him in 1974 — AND which happened for Bellei in a different manner) your citizenship is in jeopardy, could bring him back under a cloud.
We have to ask, for whom does the Bellei toll? To make a pun.
Cruz may be a conflicted redneck here. His move of most integrity might be to throw support to another candidate, and the most logical one would be Trump.