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Ted Cruz Trump - Trump questions Cruz's eligibility for the presidency on the grounds that he was born in Canada, echoing his earlier false claim that Obama was born in Kenya

Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz during CNN's Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas last month. The two mostly avoided externalizing during the debates. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Ted Cruz Trump

Donald Trump questioned the eligibility of Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on Tuesday, arguing that he is not a natural-born American citizen.

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In an interview with the Washington Post, Trump said that the fact that Cruz was born in Canada is "very uncertain for Republicans because he will run and the courts can take a long time to make a decision. You don't want to run and have it over your head."

The Republican candidate went on to claim that "a lot of people are talking about... the fact that he was born in Canada and had a dual passport."

Cruz, whose campaign declined to comment, was born in Calgary in 1971. Although his father, Rafael, was not a U.S. citizen at the time, his Delaware-born mother, Eleanor, was. Article II of the US Constitution requires that "no person except a natural born citizen...shall be qualified for the office of President".

But legal scholars have long interpreted natural-born citizen to refer to whether someone acquired their citizenship at birth, rather than the geographic location in which they were born. As a result, Cruz, who was a citizen at birth, is a citizen by birth.

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Cruz didn't want to directly engage Trump during the Republican debate season, but the episode prompted a heated tweet from the Texas senator.

He wrote as his response, "@realDonaldTrump is questioning my birthright citizenship," with a YouTube clip of the Happy Days character Ponzi "jumping the shark." This moment was seen as an irreversible downward turn for the quality of the program and gave rise to the phrase "jumping the shark" for the moment when a once-successful product goes permanently wrong.

Cruz declined to go beyond that tweet in a huddle with reporters in Iowa on Tuesday. "I'll stick with Ponzi jumping the shark," he said. The senator added: "I love Donald Trump. I love everyone."

Cruz was asked at a November campaign stop in Chariton, Iowa, about the circumstances of his birth. Cruz said, “As a matter of law, it is clear that a child of an American citizen born abroad is a natural-born citizen. So are people going to bring it up for political mischief? Sure, it's politics, that's what they do, but as a legal matter... it's quite simple and I don't think there's any obstacle."

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Trump, who has been one of the most vocal "leaders" pushing the false claim that Barack Obama was born in Kenya — which, incidentally, would still make him a natural-born citizen — has previously questioned Cruz's citizenship.

In 2013, he told ABC News' Jonathan Karl that the Texas senator might not be eligible to run for president. "If he was born in Canada, maybe not. It will work out. I don't know the circumstances. If he says he was born in Canada, that's his business."

Some Democrats questioned Cruz's citizenship. Florida Congressman Alan Grayson called Cruz a "Canadian" in 2014 and said he was unfit to serve in the White House.

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