Ted Cruz Indicates Trump Jumped The Shark With Citizenship Questions

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz dismissed Donald Trump’s latest comments by tweeting a Happy Days clip indicating Trump has “jumped the shark.”

According to Wikipedia, the idiom “jumping the shark” originally indicated a point at which a television show began to decline in quality and far-fetched events are created just for novelty. It was based on a scene in the fifth season of the hit TV show Happy Days when the character of Fonzie jumps over a shark while waterskiing.

While the show went on for seven more years, the stunt marked an “audacious turn” in the series, and the show was never quite the same.

My response to @realDonaldTrump calling into question my natural-born citizenship? https://t.co/gWfAHznlCY

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 5, 2016

Cruz was responding to comments Donald Trump made to the Washington Post in an interview recently. When asked about the Ted Cruz’s citizenship status, Trump had plenty to say, reports Washington Post.

“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. You don’t want to be running and have that kind of thing over your head.”

“I’d hate to see something like that get in his way. But 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.”

Cruz’s mother was an American citizen. Although he was born in Calgary, Canada in 1970, he automatically had a dual citizenship because of his mother. His father was Cuban.

There have been some questions raised over the last few years regarding whether Cruz’s Canadian birth prevented him from running for the Office of the President. Only “natural-born” citizens can be elected president, but the problem is that the term “natural-born” is not clearly defined.

Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution, states that “No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

Cruz released his birth certificate publicly in 2013 and made a statement regarding his citizenship.

“Because my mother was a U.S. citizen, born in Delaware, I was a U.S. citizen by birth.”

He formally renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2014.

Trump said that he was not attacking Cruz or starting up the “birther” issue that once plagued President Obama. Rather, he said he was giving an honest assessment of his main opponent. He said that he is just vocalizing what he is hearing from people in the conservative wing.

“People are bringing it up.”

This is not the first time Trump has brought up the issue, however, reports The Dallas Morning News. About a year ago, before Trump was actually a candidate, he was asked about Cruz’s eligibility at an Iowa stop. Trump called it a legal and political situation that Cruz would had to figure out if he wanted the presidency.

Now that Cruz is doing quite well in the polls, especially in Iowa, and is a serious threat to Trump, the tension between the two may be rising. The pair has had a polite relationship for the most part, but the competition is heating up.

https://www.facebook.com/politico/posts/10153252116361680#

The Dallas Morning News reported that Trump called Cruz a friend.

He’s a friend of mine. I have great respect for him..?.?. certainly it’s a stumbling block, and he’s going to have to have it solved before he goes too far.”

Ted Cruz indicated Trump jumped the shark with citizenship questions
by commenting that he would let his “Happy Days” tweet speak for itself.

“The best way to respond to this kind of attack is to laugh it off and to move on to the issues that matter.”

[Photo By Justin Sullivan / Getty Images]