Was There A Birth Certificate? - Donald Trump Battles Jon Karl Over Obama's, Ted Cruz's Citizenship

Potential 2016 presidential contender Donald Trump spoke to ABC's Jonathan Karl Sunday morning and reignited the birther issue that he helped spark back in 2011, questioning the legitimacy of Barack Obama's birth certificate and wondering whether Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada, was eligible to president. "Was there a birth certificate?" Trump asked. "You tell me. Some people say that was not his birth certificate. I'm saying I don't know. Nobody knows. And you don't know, either, Jonathan. You're a smart guy, you don't know, either." "I'm pretty convinced he was born in the United States," Karl said. "Ah! Pretty convinced," Trump said, and rolled over Karl's objections that he was 100% sure Obama was an American citizen. "Pretty sure is not acceptable." Trump made Obama's birth certificate a major issue in his aborted 2012 run for the GOP nomination, ultimately leading to Obama releasing his longform birth certificate. Karl asked Trump if the Canadian-born Cruz was eligible for the office. (Cruz's mother is an American citizen.) "If he was born in Canada, then perhaps not," Trump said. "That will be ironed out. I don't know the circumstances. If he says he was born in Canada, that's his thing."

The law in this case is the Constitution. The Constitution gives to electors the power to choose our presidents. They judge eligibility. I believe that most ordinary people in our founding generation believed that citizenship at birth satisfies the NBC clause and I believe that most ordinary people in our country still believe the same thing.

So, if you want to defeat Cruz on the NBC issue, you're going to have to make your convoluted pitch to the American people because, in this country, the people pick the electors who pick the president.

I can't account for what your middle school teacher told you. I know only that the president has to be 35 years old, a resident for 14 years and a natural born citizen. The electors are bound by those standards and have been for 57 straight presidential elections.

If your middle school teacher thinks that Cruz is not eligible, he/she will have to make his/her pitch to the electors and I would suggest that he/she start making that pitch to the voters who select the electors.

I am aware there was much discussion at the Constitutional Convention as eligibility qualifications for POTUSA. What you quote indicates to me that Madison was ambivalent as to a rigid requirement. I prefer to include Franklin’s presentation to Washington referencing Vattel’s writings and the resulting wording for eligibility. Such is not ambivalent as to place of birth coupled with parentage. How ever accepting what appears to be emphasis on ‘place of birth’ I want the fact as to deposed Muslim President of Egypt having given birth to two sons in the USA that these two men would be eligible for POTUSA by reason of place of birth. I cannot believe the Founding Fathers with their knowledge of the world would have set a criterion that would could allow such a possibility.

The Founding Fathers established a constitutional amendment process that allows for alteration of any and all of their original thinking on any issue. They made it difficult to alter their work by amendment but not impossible. In modern day constitutional interpretation, the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause is the definitive statement and it applies to “all persons...”

Justice Scalia, for example, said the following in oral arguments in a citizenship case:
(Jus soli citizenship is based on the land of birth and jus sanguinis is citizenship based on parentage).

In the oral arguments of Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS (No. 99-2071), Justice Scalia made it clear that his view is that natural born citizenship, the requirement to be president, is based on jus soli (birth in the United States).

Here is the relevant section from the transcript:
Justice Scalia: “… I mean, isn’t it clear that the natural born requirement in the Constitution was intended explicitly to exclude some Englishmen who had come here and spent some time here and then went back and raised their families in England?

They did not want that.

They wanted natural born Americans.

[Ms.]. Davis (Appellant’s Attorney): Yes, by the same token…

Justice Scalia: That is jus soli, isn’t it?

[Ms.] Davis: By the same token, one could say that the provision would apply now to ensure that Congress can’t apply suspect classifications to keep certain individuals from aspiring to those offices.

Justice Scalia: Well, maybe.

I’m just referring to the meaning of natural born within the Constitution.

I don’t think you’re disagreeing.

It requires jus soli, doesn’t it?”

I just don’t think we’re going to find any judge or justice anywhere in 21st century America who doesn’t believe that jus soli isn’t the fundamental requirement for natural born citizenship.

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