Texas Sen. Ted Cruz quickly responded to attacks from Donald Trump Tuesday night, after the GOP front-runner reignited a debate over Cruz’s Canadian birthplace.
Trump attacked Cruz in a Washington Post interview that was posted online Tuesday evening. “Republicans are going to have to ask themselves the question: ‘Do we want a candidate who could be tied up in court for two years?’ That’d be a big problem. It’d be a very precarious one for Republicans because he’d be running and the courts may take a long time to make a decision … A lot of people are talking about it and I know that even some states are looking at it very strongly, the fact that he was born in Canada and he has had a double passport,” said Trump.
Within minutes of the story being published, Cruz’s campaign team responded on Twitter, defending his “natural citizenship” and posting a video from the TV show Happy Days that compared Trump’s attacks to “jumping the shark” or making an outrageous statement to try and win back viewers.
My response to @realDonaldTrump calling into question my natural-born citizenship? https://t.co/gWfAHznlCY
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 5, 2016
The last time Trump addressed Cruz’s birthplace was in September while speaking at a rally on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. The self-funded billionaire said Cruz’s Canadian birth should not disqualify him from running for president.
“I hear it was checked out by every attorney and every which way and I understand Ted is in fine shape,” Trump had told reporters at the rally.Trump has repeatedly attacked the first-term senator over the past few months as Cruz’s polling numbers have continued to increase. Cruz is currently ranked first in the Washington Examiner‘s presidential power rankings. Trump has been in second place for a couple weeks.
