“I’LL ANSWER YOUR QUESTION, BUT I’M NOT GOING TO DEBATE YOU”
by Sharon Rondeau
(Feb. 6, 2016) — ABC News has released a video of Sen. Ted Cruz campaigning on Thursday in New Hampshire during which a person identifying himself as a 17-year-old, first-time voter asked him how it was that Cruz was unaware that he possessed Canadian citizenship from birth.
The Post & Email received the video clip from an individual who said he was in attendance during the exchange.
Cruz responded by justifying his eligibility to seek the office as a “natural born Citizen” rather than directly addressing the person’s question. Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution requires the president to be a “natural born Citizen.”
Most Americans have understood the term to mean that the person is born in the United States, although the parents’ citizenship was historically of equal or perhaps more importance.
Cruz had denied knowing that he possessed Canadian citizenship until after The Dallas Morning News reported it on August 18, 2013. His spokeswoman, Catherine Frazier, was quoted at the time as having said, “To our knowledge, he never had Canadian citizenship.”
Frazier also insisted that Cruz staffers had disseminated “only the facts” from news reports last Monday night when informing caucus captains that Dr. Ben Carson was suspending his campaign and urging would-be Carson voters to cast their votes for Cruz. However, no news media reported that Carson would be suspending his campaign nor that he would be “making a big announcement next week,” as Cruz staffers claimed.
In May 2014, Cruz renounced his Canadian citizenship.
“This isn’t a question about your eligibility; it’s a question about your credibility,” the questioner clarified before Cruz responded.
“Well, thank you very much for that kind question,” Cruz began. Someone then shouted out, “Better a Canadian than a Kenyan!” in an apparent reference to the current White House occupant, Barack Hussein Obama, who many suspect was born in Kenya or another country outside of the United States.
A criminal investigation has reported that airline manifests for the days immediately prior to and following Obama’s alleged birth in Hawaii on August 4, 1961 are missing from the National Archives. The Maricopa County Cold Case Posse additionally reported in 2012 that Obama’s long-form birth certificate and Selective Service registration form are “computer-generated forgeries.”
Cruz has served in the U.S. Senate since January 2013 and, like every other U.S. Senator, has taken no steps, at least to the public’s knowledge, to investigate the posse’s findings to determine how the forgeries were created and by whom.
Cruz repeatedly told the questioner, who attempted to obtain a direct answer, that “I’m happy to answer your question, but I’m not going to debate you.” Cruz then said that “under U.S. law, the child of a U.S. citizen born abroad is a natural born Citizen. That has been true from the very beginning of this country.”
When the questioner attempted to object to the response, Cruz cut him off and went on to take a question from another individual.
Cruz’s response did not reflect that the “law” to which he was apparently referring, the Naturalization Act of 1790, was repealed and replaced in 1795, with the “natural born Citizens” reference removed. Both acts were passed after the ratification of the Constitution which contains the “natural born Citizen” requirement, reserved solely for the presidency.
During his years at Princeton University, Cruz was leader of the debate team and considered highly-skilled in that area.