Michael Medved: 'Trump & Ted' bromance falls apart

With Donald Trump and Ted Cruz topping most polls, some imaginative activists have already contacted my radio show to suggest that the two leading candidates join forces to run together as a team. After all, “Trump and Ted” has a nice ring to it, and they appeal to the same segment of the Republican Party with their hard line on immigration and anti-establishment rhetoric. Could their once celebrated “bromance” on the campaign trail blossom into a right-wing dream ticket so powerful and convincing as to sweep aside all resistance?

Unfortunately, for those who cherish this scenario, there’s an insurmountable obstacle — aside from the fear that any chief executive installing the ambitious Cruz as his VEEP might find it difficult to secure a life insurance policy. For Trump-and-Ted fantasists, the biggest problem remains The Donald’s embarrassing obsession with President Obama’s birth certificate in his abortive campaign of just four years ago — a fixation that has led him to raise questions about whether Cruz is ineligible for either of the nation’s top two offices. Trump's recent comments about his rival's allegedly questionable eligibility could, in fact, indicate a newly found concern for consistency.

While Trump and his birther buddies stressed the vague, groundless possibility that Obama might have been born in Kenya, there is no doubt at all as to where Teddy "Shutdown" was born: Rafael Edward Cruz first saw the light of day on Dec. 22, 1970, in Calgary. He was definitely foreign-born — with the Canadian birth certificate and the dual Canadian-American citizenship (until May 14, 2014) to prove it.

Do these circumstances make him some sort of impostor candidate, blithely ignoring the constitutional requirement that reserves the presidency for “natural born” Americans? Not at all: According to the all-but-unanimous understanding of legal experts, children of United States citizens receive U.S. citizenship together with the breath of life wherever they are born. Past Republican candidates such as Barry Goldwater, George Romney and John McCain were born outside the USA, but because of their American parentage, no one seriously challenged their status.

Why, then, did a massive movement claim with incessant and insane indignation that Obama’s candidacy represented some sort of unconstitutional abomination? According to endlessly repeated arguments, though little Barack’s mother had been born in Kansas, her husband’s identity as a foreign student from Kenya would have rendered the baby ineligible, if evidence existed (though none did) that Barack had been born overseas.

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Where does that leave Sen. Cruz? Yes, his mother hailed from Delaware, but his father remained a Cuban national at the time of Ted’s arrival on the scene. During this presidential campaign, Trump has dodged questions on his convictions regarding Obama’s constitutional qualifications. If Trump now considers the president a legitimate chief magistrate, he acknowledges he indulged in demented demagoguery four years ago. If, on the other hand, Trump admits to continued questions about Obama’s eligibility, he must entertain similar reservations about Cruz's candidacy.

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The only possible resolution for this embarrassing inconsistency involves a stroll into some very tall weeds and reference to the Nationality Act of 1940, which outlines precisely which children become "nationals and citizens of the United States at birth." Under terms of this legislation, as amended in 1952, if a child boasts only one parent with U.S. citizenship, that citizen parent must have lived at least 10 years on American soil, including at least five years above the age of 14. Obama’s mother gave birth to him three months shy of her 19th birthday, so if he were actually born in Kenya (for which, of course, no evidence exists) his status might be questionable. In the case of Cruz, his mother gave birth to him at least five years after her graduation from Rice University, and she had lived in America most of her life. No problem with the five-year rule.

Even so, skeptics have already raised new challenges because no one has yet been able to locate her Delaware birth certificate to prove Cruz's mother’s precise age or her native birth. In other words, for the birth-certificate-centric Trump, anointing Ted might require the hiring of determined private detectives to uncover his mama’s missing natal documents. Without them, The Donald would be honor-bound to erect a yuuuuuge wall to separate, forever, the junior senator from Texas from exalted residence in the vice presidential mansion.

Michael Medved hosts a nationally syndicated talk radio show and is a member of the USA TODAY Board of Contributors.

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