Haley: Trump's Birther Nonsense Shows I'm a Threat

Spreading of false claim that Haley is ineligible for presidency viewed as 'all too familiar'
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 19, 2024 12:14 PM CST
Haley: Trump's Birther Nonsense Shows I'm a Threat
Republican presidential candidate former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks during a campaign event in Hollis, NH, Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024.   (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

No, it's not 2011. But yes, Donald Trump is again spreading a baseless "birther" conspiracy theory about one of his foes. At a Thursday town hall with the former UN ambassador, CNN's Jake Tapper highlighted the former president's sharing of an article from a conspiracy-peddling website suggesting Nikki Haley, a natural-born US citizen, can't be president because her parents were born outside of the US, per Politico. "That's what he does when he feels threatened, that's what he does when he feels insecure," countered Haley, who's neck-and-neck with Trump in a new poll out of New Hampshire. "I know that I am a threat. I know that's why he's doing that," added Haley, who was born in South Carolina to Indian parents.

Her parents' birthplace has no effect on her eligibility to become president. A president must be a natural-born citizen, largely considered to mean a citizen at the time of their birth, and anyone born on US soil becomes a citizen under the 14th Amendment. The article Trump shared cited pro-Trump lawyer Paul Ingrassia as saying a natural-born citizen only applies to a person born in the US whose parents are also US citizens, but legal scholars say that argument is ridiculous. In 2016, election officials in three states determined both Sen. Marco Rubio, born in the US to citizens of Cuba, and Sen. Ted Cruz, born in Canada to a US citizen mother, were natural-born citizens under US law, CNN reports.

In a Thursday statement. Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi said Trump's "hateful attacks" against Haley "are all too familiar" and "any Republican who claims to support the South Asian community should condemn this rhetoric," per NDTV. Trump previously spread birther conspiracy theories about former President Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris. As CNN's Zachary B. Wolf notes, "It is actually Trump who faces more legitimate questions about his eligibility" to regain the presidency as the US Supreme Court ponders arguments that he is forbidden under the 14th Amendment's insurrectionist clause. (More Nikki Haley stories.)

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