It made the Obama bros REALLY mad and launched Trump into the political arena.
It worked on Ted Cruz.
At this point I guess you'd say that questioning a person's eligibility to run for President is Trump's ol' reliable tool.
Here's what he posted on Truth Social:
Alright Nikki, come join the past cadre of characters who Trump has buried after speculating on their citizenship and eligibility to run for President.
As Haley surges in New Hampshire polling, Trump posted an article on his Truth Social account from a right-wing outlet that claimed Haley, his GOP rival, is ineligible to be president because her parents were not U.S. citizens when she was born.
Haley was born in South Carolina and has lived in the U.S. her entire life. Her parents were immigrants, who became citizens after her birth in 1972.
The basics of this argument hinge on the birthright citizenship and "anchor baby" cases. Is someone a citizen JUST because they were born on US soil, even if their parents aren't citizens?
The longstanding judicial opinion is yes. But there are certain legal and constitutional scholars, such as the one Trump references, who believe that being born on US soil to non-citizen parents shouldn't guarantee you American citizenship.
But that's a BIG question that would affect MILLIONS of people besides Nikki Haley.
NBC headlines this as a "baseless" birther claim against Haley.
But since when has NBC objected to "baseless" efforts to get Trump removed from the ballot?
This is just as legally reasonable as any effort to remove Trump from the ballot, if not more so.
But NBC gon' NBC.
"Someone should tell him [Trump] that the North won" the Civil War, joked Burt Neuborne, a professor emeritus at New York University Law School and the founding legal director of the Brennan Center for Justice.
"If you're born in the United States, the whole purpose of the 14th Amendment was to make you a citizen," he added.
Oh, so we're interviewing trolls now, huh?
Now, just like every other "birther" effort by Trump, it's not likely to result in removing anyone from the ballot.
But as a rhetorical device, it's a powerful tool - there's a reason Trump keeps returning to this well!
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