Trump: Cruz's Canadian birth could be a 'big problem'

Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

It feels a bit like déjà vu: Instead of challenging President Obama on his birthplace, Donald Trump is now questioning whether Canadian-born Ted Cruz can be president.

During an interview with The Washington Post, Trump said if his fellow Republican presidential candidate becomes the nominee, he could find himself "tied up in court" for years. "That'd be a big problem," he said. "It'd be a very precarious one for Republicans because he'd be running and the courts may take a long time to decide. You don't want to be running and have that kind of thing over your head." Cruz was born in Calgary in 1970, and his mother was a U.S. citizen; under the U.S. Constitution, the president must be a "natural-born citizen," and anyone born to a U.S. citizen is granted citizenship regardless of where the birth occurs.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.