Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)’s qualification for the presidency has been debated recently after GOP rival Donald Trump made a point to take issue with Cruz’s citizenship.
Though born in Canada, Cruz was a United States citizen at birth because his mother is a U.S. citizen. The U.S. Constitution states that only a “natural born citizen” can be President.
Here are what some prominent Republican officials have to say on the topic.
Chairman of the Republican National Committee Reince Priebus dodged answering whether he felt Cruz qualified to be President in an interview with Time published Sunday.
“Listen, I don’t get involved,” Time quoted Priebus saying. “I’m not going to get in the middle of all these candidate issues. It’s a bad place for me to be. I’ll let all these folks argue about this stuff, and I’m going to stay out of it.”
Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, a Republican, said Monday that the questions about Cruz’s qualifications are fair. “When you run for president of the United States, any question is fair game. So let the people decide.”
Mitt Romney, the GOP nominee in the 2012 election, has said that, like his own father who also ran for president, Cruz is eligible to run. In a Friday tweet, he told critics to move on.
.@tedcruz is a “natural born citizen.” Obama too. Even George Romney. This isn’t the issue you’re looking for.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) January 8, 2016
Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) quipped Wednesday that he thought Cruz was “without question” qualified… to be Canada’s prime minister.
Cruz has dismissed the birther chatter as “political noise.” “As a legal matter, the question is quite straightforward and settled law that the child of a U.S. citizen born abroad is a natural born citizen,” Cruz told reporters last week.