Bloomberg
By Kendall Breitman
January 7, 2016
Ted
Cruz responded to John McCain questioning his eligibility for the
presidency, saying the Arizona senator is secretly trying to boost Marco
Rubio's chances at the Republican
nomination.
"I
think it is no surprise to anybody that John McCain is going to be
supporting Marco Rubio in this election," Cruz told Mark Halperin of
Bloomberg's With All Due Respect.
"It's no surprise at all that he's trying to do what he can to help the
candidate that he's favoring who he thinks shares policy positions with
him."
The
Texas senator's rebuttal comes hours after McCain said during a Phoenix
radio interview that Cruz's birth abroad and his eligibility to become
president is "worth
looking into."
"I think there is a question," McCain said.
Responding
on Friday to Cruz's charge that the Arizona senator was backing Rubio,
McCain spokesperson Rachael Dean said, "As Senator McCain has said in
the past, he will
not be endorsing a primary candidate at this point in the race."
The
issue was first raised by Republican front-runner Donald Trump on
Monday. “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,” he
told the Washington Post.
Cruz
was born in Alberta and lived in Canada until he was 4 years old. He
renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2014, and, because he was born to
an American mother and
father, is an American citizen.
"The legal question is straightforward and clear," Cruz said.
McCain
faced questions about his own eligibility when he ran for president in
2008. As Cruz cited when speaking to press on Wednesday, McCain was born
on a military base
in the Panama Canal Zone. "That's different from being born on foreign
soil," McCain said.
"It's
not surprising that political opponents who are worried about our
surging support among conservatives are trying to muddy the water and
are trying to see if reporters
will run down crazy rabbit trails because they want to distract from
the simple reality that conservatives are uniting," Cruz said.
But
if a judge were to rule that Cruz is not eligible to run due to his
birthplace, the Texas senator may not seek to change the rules. When
asked about people such as
his father and Arnold Schwarzenegger—people who immigrated to the
United States and love the country but were not natural born citizens—he
would not say if the Constitution should be changed to allow for those
who gained citizenship later in life.
"At
the end of the day, we have the Constitution we have, and it has served
us very well for over two centuries and we should follow the
Constitution," Cruz said.
During
the interview, Cruz also said he disagrees with Trump's idea to place a
45 percent tariff on Chinese exports, which the real estate mogul
proposed on Thursday during
an editorial board meeting with the New York Times. The Texan said that
large tariffs historically hurt American jobs, and pushed the
alternative of placing a 16 percent business flat tax on imports.
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