Rand Paul: Ted Cruz Would Make a Fine Prime Minister for Canada, Might Not Be Eligible

It looks like Donald Trump’s line of attack against Ted Cruz — questioning the Texas senator’s eligibility because he was born in Canada — has gone mainstream. Both Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson have picked it up and run with it, saying that it’s far from clear that Cruz is a natural-born citizen.

Now, I didn’t expect much better from McCain and Grayson, but I am disappointed that Senator Rand Paul is also using it against his rival:

Rand Paul said on Wednesday that he’s not sure if his Canadian-born rival for the Republican presidential nomination Ted Cruz is eligible to be president of the United States.

“You know, I think without question he is qualified and would make the cut to be prime minister of Canada, absolutely without question, he is qualified and he meets the qualifications,” the Kentucky senator said of Cruz on the radio show Kilmeade and Friends.

He was then asked the question again. His answer:

You know, I’m not an expert on the natural-born clause in the Constitution and people have various opinions. Some people believe it means you need to be born here, some people think it means you can be born in another country as long as your parents are citizens.

That’s laughable because Paul’s entire campaign is based on him being an expert on the Constitution. As such, he perfectly well knows that Cruz certainly is a natural born citizen. Being a natural born citizen means that you are born with American citizenship. Ted Cruz was. His mother was American — and had lived in the United States for most of her life until she moved to Canada in her thirties — and, therefore, so was her son.

It’s truly insane to argue the opposite. Are we to believe if your wife is seven months pregnant, and you go to Paris for the holidays where she gives birth early, your child may not automatically be an American?

It’s utterly and completely ridiculous. And Paul knows it. As Harvard Law Review wrote last year:

Despite the happenstance of a birth across the border, there is no question that Senator Cruz has been a citizen from birth and is thus a “natural born Citizen” within the meaning of the Constitution. Indeed, because his father had also been resident in the United States, Senator Cruz would have been a “natural born Citizen” even under the Naturalization Act of 1790.

As I explained earlier at PJM, like others here, I’m all in for Ted Cruz because I believe he is — by far — the best conservative candidate running. Until today, however, I was a big fan of Rand Paul, who has had a positive impact on D.C., if for no other reason than that he has brought some much needed libertarianism to the Capitol. Hooray for Rand. Or so I thought.

That admiration has come to an end today. There are enough lying, deceiving, spinning and dishonest politicians in Washington. There’s no need for such a guy to become president; America has had a leader like that for the last eight years, and it has almost destroyed the nation.