Posted on 02/20/2016 8:52:39 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Now Donald Trump is questioning Marco Rubio' eligibility for the presidency.
In a tweet Saturday, Trump shared a video of what appears to be an attorney making a bizarre case that not only Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada, but Rubio, whose parents immigranted from Cuba, is not eligible to become president.
In the tweet to his 6.3 million followers, Trump quoted a message sent to him by another Twitter user, who at the time appeared to have five followers: "@realDonaldTrump Mr. Trump...BOTH Cruz AND Rubio are ineligible to be POTUS! It's a SLAM DUNK CASE!! Check it!"
The tweet links to a video on the website of the Powdered Whig Society, a group that says it is dedicated "to the restoration and strict obedience to the United States Constitution."
The 12-minute video shows an unidentified woman who is purported to be a litigation attorney describe what it means to be a natural born citizen. She argues that both Rubio and Cruz are citizens, but not "natural born citizens" according to the Constitution, which says only natural born citizens may become president.
Rubio was born in Miami. That makes him a natural born U.S. citizen under the Constitution. But the unnamed woman in the video Trump posted says he is not a "naturalized citizen," because his citizenship is defined under Section 1 of the 14th Amendment. If not for this "man-made law," she says Rubio would have been born a "resident alien," the same status of his parents, both of whom were Cuban nationals.
The supposed attorney later goes on to call Congress using laws to change the original text of the Constitution as "ridiculous."
"In order to understand the genuine meaning of a text, we must use the definition the framer's use, otherwise texts become like Play-Doh. They mean whatever you want them to mean to get the outcome you want," she says.
Cruz, who was born in Canada to father who was a Cuban national and an American mother. Some legal scholars says that leaves his eligibility to run for president in question. But the supposed attorney makes a far more questionable case. She argues that when the Constitution was written, a woman's legal identity was subsumed into her husband's. That would also disqualify Cruz, she says, because it is necessary that he be born of a father who is a citizen.
When the Constitution was written in the 1780s, the purported attorney says all the framers knew what a natural born citizen was, using a definition provided in Swiss philosopher and legal expert Emerich de Vattel's book on political philosophy The Law of Nations. In it, she says, a child's status as a citizen is defined as being inherited from the father, and that it does not matter where the child is born.
Like his eye color, citizenship is "inherited by his parents, it's in his blood," she says. "Not an act of Congress."
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Wake up conservatives, One or Two Conservatives Views and a Slew of Liberal Views Doesn’t Make Trump a “Common Sense Conservative.”
No person except a natural born citizen, OR a citizen of the United States..
It says "or" and not "and." What's so hard to understand? Didn't Trump take an English course in college?
But then complications arise, such as the case of John McCain, born of citizen parents in Panama.
Fact is, until a court, perhaps the US Supreme Court settles this, none of can say for sure about the eligibility of Cruz Rubio or other people such as Bobby Jindal, who could be a VP choice.
Hope not. I still intend to vote for Cruz if he's the guy in November.
He’ll probably sue Robio too. /s
Of course, Rubio is not eligible under the Constitution. His parents were Cuban citizens when he was born.
Those extremist Founding Fathers. They were nothing but birthers, saying that a person has to be a natural born citizen to be president of the United States.
Can you possibly imagine 8 years of this?
Claiming to have been “born In Hawaii” was a grand diversion - and it worked. The controversy over the fake “birth certificate” totally took the media focus off the key fact that his “daddy” was not an American citizen (foreign student from Kenya).
Same for Rubio, too. Either Rubio or Cruz could have been a national hero, instead of just another national ego.
As it is, Trump is a hero simply for being the ONLY one fighting for the Constitution against our worldly ways of seeking to redefine everything, even the fundamentals themselves, including our own fundamental definition of our national identity.
I am trying not to hate Cruz and Rubio, the same as I try not to hate obama, for what they are doing and not doing, but it's very hard to not give in to it and let my emotions run my mouth.
I pray for them and for US that we all wake up and get back to real.
So, if all one needs to be a natural born citizen is to be born on US soil? Anchor babies are rejoicing everywhere.
How is he “fighting?”
“Rubio is just as much a “natural born citizen†as is Trump”
Really?
Both Trump’s parents were citizens of the United State when he was born.
Rubio’s parents were Cuban citizens when he was born.
And what make Rubio an “anchor baby”? Under your “analysis”, all children of immigrants are anchor babies. So, a natural born citizen is a person who must be from at least a second generation family where all parents were born here.
There is no support for this.
The Trump Train is coming off the rails.
I Like the Mandate.
Bring back the good ones
I’m gonna sue Ted Cruz
Bush Lied, people died.
Mexico is going to pay for it
Cruz is not eligible
Rubio is not eligible
Ben Carson is like a child molester
+++++++++
Trump is unstable. Hopefully the electorate will wake up before it’s too late.
And those who support someone who doesn’t understand the constitution will themselves not understand the constitution. When a supposed expert refers to an amendment as man made, they’ve exposed their ignorance. Trumpsters seem all too eager to yell, “The Constitution!”, yet support a guy who has shown no evidence he will abide by it. At the same time, they ridicule a man who has over and over again fought the conservative fight.
No! Marco Rubio is not the child of TWO American citizens, even though he was born in this country. Neither is Ted Cruz, who has the added burden of being born in a foreign country to a father who was a citizen of a third foreign country.
The clause about being a citizen as of the ratification of the Constitution was put in there because none of the Founding Fathers were children of American citizens. They were all natural-born British subjects.
However if you are a Liberal, then the Constitution is a Living Document, and one American mother is all you need.
Don’t leave out the context, “or a citizen at the time of the adoption of this constitution” which covered our first 8 President’s. Nice attempt to twist the facts to your situation. Are you really that ignorant or just a disruptor? We’ve been having eligibility arguments in these threads for years and you quote “a citizen of the United States as your argument?”
People forget that black children born in the United States before 1865 were not considered citizens of the United States, much less natural born citizens.
If it doesn’t matter where you were born why did Obama fight so hard insisting he was born in Hawaii? Why didn’t Obama just say it doesn’t matter where he was born but he fought hard to say Hawaii and I would never vote for an anchor baby like Rubio.
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Good question, simple answer the law required the mother to resides in the us for more than 5 years after age 14 IIRC Cruz’ mother met that requirement Obama’s mother didn’t apples and oranges.
Barry Soetoro/Barack Hussein Obama should be proof enough of the wisdom of the founders when they tried to prevent him from being President by requiring someone who could only be a US citizen and nothing else.
Born here of citizen parents.
Naturally a US citizen because there is no other possibility.
One cannot be anything else and also be a natural born citizen.
Obama told us he was born a British Subject.
Who believes Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Jay, Monroe, Madison, etc. would have found him to be a natural born citizen?
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