Via the Daily Caller. I believe him, but if Cruz jumps into the presidential race and starts gobbling up Paul’s support among tea partiers in Iowa, I wonder how many Paul fans — and Hillary fans — will be willing to take a “closer look” at the issue.

This wasn’t the only mention of Cruz’s eligibility on CNN yesterday either. They devoted an entire segment to it during Wolf Blitzer’s show, as you’ll see below. Maybe Birtherism is another issue, like aggressive counterterrorism and unilateral executive action, on which the press will take a more respectful, nuanced line now that doing so benefits Democrats. Anyway, let me borrow Ace’s question from yesterday since I glossed over it in my own post on Cruz’s eligibility: Why shouldn’t a child born abroad inherit American citizenship from a parent who’s a citizen? What’s the logic for denying that kid dual-citizen status and then letting him choose which nation to commit to once he’s of age? I can imagine circumstances in which a citizen’s loyalty to the U.S. is deemed questionable due to the circumstances of what they’re doing abroad — e.g., if they’re working for a foreign government — but if you relocated for, say, business reasons and you choose to accept all of the obligations that come with remaining a U.S. citizen, why should that status be withdrawn from you or your kid? Defining “natural born” as “born on U.S. soil” means that Cruz somehow would be perfectly okay if his mother had crossed back into the U.S. the day before he was born, gave birth here, and then took off back to Canada the day after. Rationally, how would that give us any more confidence about his loyalty to America than him being born in Calgary and then moving to America as a kid?

Read DrewM’s post about the statutory test for determining citizenship for a child born to an American abroad in 1970, as Cruz was. It aims to gauge, however roughly, the parent’s loyalty to America by examining how long they resided here. If they lived in the U.S. for 10 years, five of which came after their 14th birthday (i.e. during their formative years, when their political and patriotic identity was being shaped), then their child inherits citizenship from them. I suggested a residency requirement myself yesterday as a replacement for the natural-born test of presidential eligibility. Birthplace doesn’t tell you much about loyalty. Residence for a long stretch of time does.

Here’s Paul talking about Cruz and about Palin taking his side against Chris Christie, followed by the Blitzer segment.