Trump Says Cruz Has Flip-Flopped on Birthright Citizenship

In the latest exchange of attacks between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, Trump tweeted a video Tuesday morning showing Cruz flip-flopping on the issue of birthright citizenship.

The premise of birthright citizenship is laid out in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside.”

The video highlights a stark contrast between Cruz’s support for the policy in 2011 compared to comments he made in 2015, when he claimed that he has been against the policy for many years.

The first part of the video shows an interview with Cruz on The Duke Machado Show while he was running for the U.S. Senate in 2011. He said, “The 14th Amendment provides for birthright citizenship. I have looked at the legal arguments against it and I will tell you, as a Supreme Court litigator, those arguments are not very good. As much as somebody may dislike the policy of birthright citizenship, it is in the Constitution.”

Cruz added: “I think it is a mistake for conservatives to be trying to fight what the Constitution says on birthright citizenship.”

The video tweeted by Trump today also shows Cruz discussing his stance in an interview with AR1.TV last year.

“I think we need to end birthright citizenship,” Cruz said. “As a policy matter, it doesn’t make any sense that we should be incentivizing illegal immigration. There’s no reason that federal law should state that if somebody is here illegally that their children are automatically U.S. citizens.”

He noted that Trump has only recently come out against this policy. “I’ve had that position for many years, back in 2011 when I was running for U.S. Senate," Cruz said.

The video concludes with a slate that says, “Which Cruz Will You Choose?” and “Keep Them Honest” next to a flipping coin.

Cruz has had to defend his presidential campaign after Trump publicly claimed that Cruz is not eligible to be president because he was born in Canada to an American mother and Cuban father.

Cruz is considered an American citizen because of his mother and many legal scholars have come to the consensus that he is a “natural-born citizen."

Neither Cruz nor his campaign have responded to the video, but on the trail on Tuesday, Cruz responded to other attacks Trump has made over the past week.

"You look at other candidates in this race, you look at Donald Trump for example. Listen, I like Donald,” he said. “The last couple of days, he’s been getting rattled. He’s been throwing some insults my way. I don’t intend to respond in kind. I have no interest in engaging in an insult fight. I don’t think the American people care about a bunch of politicians behaving like petulant children.”

The video that Trump tweeted was originally on the YouTube channel “Real Americans 4 Real Presidents,” which is not affiliated with the Trump campaign.

Trump and Cruz are in a dead heat just two weeks before the Iowa Caucus, with Cruz polling 3 points above Trump in the latest Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll.

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