New take on foreign birth: Poor Ted Cruz is being forced to explain his foreign birth.
The gentleman was born in Canada, to an American mother. And Canada is a foreign country!
This creates an awkward echo of the Tea Party furor about Obama’s imagined foreign birth. Last night, on Hardball, Chris Matthews explained the Cruz situation as follows:
According to Matthews, Cruz is a natural-born American citizen despite his birth on Canadian soil. The segment started with tape of Cruz explaining his situation to Jonathan Karl:
HARDBALL (8/20/13):As far as we know, Matthews is right. If you’re born on foreign soil to an American mother, you’re an American citizen.
KARL: You were born in Canada. Could you—are you even eligible to be president of the United States?
CRUZ: My mother was born in Wilmington, Delaware. She is a U.S. citizen, so I’m a U.S. citizen by birth.
(End of videotape)
MATTHEWS: “I’m a U.S. citizen by birth,” and he couldn’t be more right. Welcome back to Hardball!
That was Texas senator Ted Cruz telling ABC's Jonathan Karl that he is, in fact, a natural-born citizen, therefore eligible to be president.
Cruz went the extra mile to release his birth certificate to the Dallas Morning News, which reported that Cruz, who was born in Canada to an American mother, has dual citizenship, which is, by the way, the accident of being born up there.
And following that report, Senator Cruz released a statement renouncing his Canadian citizenship formally. He said, "Now the Dallas Morning News says that I may technically have dual citizenship. Assuming that to be true, then sure, I will renounce any Canadian citizen. Nothing against Canada, but I’m an American by birth, and as a U.S. senator. I believe I should only be an American."
Well said. I couldn’t agree with him more. It’s odd for me to say this about a guy I probably disagree with on many points, but he couldn’t be more right.
[...]
He’s giving every indication he may be thinking of running for president and is eligible to do so. He’s a natural-born citizen because he did not have to be naturalized. That’s how simple it is. He was an American at the second of his birth.
[...]
Wayne [Slater], I couldn’t be more clear in my complete and utter agreement with Senator Cruz. He’s an American by birth. His mother was American. I don’t care if you were flying in an airplane over Toledo, or Toledo somewhere in Spain, if you’re born to an American mother, you’re an American, damn it...
But that isn’t what Matthews said, for several years, during the nonsense about Obama’s alleged foreign birth. Back then, Matthews railed about the birthers’ ridiculous claim that Obama was born in Kenya. But he kept suggesting that Obama would in fact be a foreigner if he had been born in Kenya. He never made the simple point he made last night:
Even if he had been born overseas, he’d be an American citizen.
We complained and complained about Matthews’ take on this matter in the past. But he kept suggesting the birthers were right in their basic theory.
As far as we know, he never said what he said last night: With respect to Obama's citizenship, their stupid claim never even made sense.
As usual, Chris has flipped his position without explaining why he has flipped. We wouldn’t swear that he’s right this time.
But, as usual, he’s different.
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