DES MOINES, Iowa — Donald Trump, the chief propagator of false “birther” claims first against then-President Barack Obama and later against Sen. Ted Cruz, has a new target: Nikki Haley.
As Haley surges in New Hampshire polling, Trump posted an article on his Truth Social account from a right-wing outlet that claimed Haley, his GOP rival, is ineligible to be president because her parents were not U.S. citizens when she was born.
Haley was born in South Carolina and has lived in the U.S. her entire life. Her parents were immigrants, who became citizens after her birth in 1972.
“The birther claims against Nikki Haley are totally baseless as a legal and constitutional matter,” Harvard Law School professor emeritus Laurence Tribe wrote in an email. “I can’t imagine what Trump hopes to gain by those claims unless it’s to play the race card against the former governor and UN ambassador as a woman of color — and to draw on the wellsprings of anti-immigrant prejudice by reminding everyone that Haley’s parents weren’t citizens when she was born in the USA.”
The 14th Amendment clearly states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” are citizens. It was enacted after the Civil War to confer citizenship upon Black Americans who had previously been slaves.
“Someone should tell him [Trump] that the North won” the Civil War, joked Burt Neuborne, a professor emeritus at New York University Law School and the founding legal director of the Brennan Center for Justice.
“If you’re born in the United States, the whole purpose of the 14th Amendment was to make you a citizen,” he added.
To be eligible for the presidency, a person must be a “natural born citizen” and at least 35 years old and must have resided in the country for at least 14 years.
Trump has argued that “birthright citizenship” should be taken away for the children of undocumented immigrants.
The Trump campaign, asked about his social media post, provided no further statement.
The Haley campaign also did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump has frequently targeted his birther claims at people of color.
In 2020, Trump also amplified a similar theory against Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris was born in the U.S. to parents who were Jamaican and Indian immigrants.
Trump’s prominence on the far right rose in large part because of his vocal embrace of conspiracy theories centered on the claim that Obama was ineligible to be president because he was not born in Hawaii. In 2011, Trump perpetuated the false claims that Obama’s birth certificate was fake.
And eight years ago, Trump took the same tack in an effort to undercut Cruz, R-Texas, then his rival for the Republican presidential nomination. Trump claimed Cruz was ineligible for the White House because he was born in Canada, though his mother was a U.S. citizen at the time.
Trump used the birther claim to incessantly attack Cruz during their primary battle and repeatedly threatened to “sue [Cruz] for not being a natural born citizen,” although he never followed through with the threat. Supporters of Trump, however, often used Cruz’s birthplace to attack his presidential bid.
At the time, legal scholars roundly rejected the argument. Neal Katyal, who was acting solicitor general under Obama, and Paul Clement, who was solicitor general under President George W. Bush, wrote against the argument in the Harvard Law Review in 2015.
“But as Congress has recognized since the Founding, a person born abroad to a U.S. citizen parent is generally a U.S. citizen from birth with no need for naturalization. And the phrase ‘natural born Citizen’ in the Constitution encompasses all such citizens from birth,” they wrote.
Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, an MSNBC columnist, called Trump’s suggestion that Haley is ineligible “offensive” but also noted that it could be an issue that eventually makes its way to the courts more fully.
“It’s an offensive question that’s contrary to American values,” she said. “The Founding Fathers imposed a restriction, but it’s hard to believe that it was meant to burden a second generation of American citizens born on American soil like Nikki Haley. But nonetheless, the question of the term ‘natural born citizen’ has not been fully fleshed out in the courts, and it may be that Trump is relegating us to more meaningless discourse in this area just like he did with the birther lies about Obama.”
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
