Trump Plays Birther Card Questioning American Citizenship of Nikki Haley Whose Campaign is Gaining Momentum

Donald Trump is doing it again. The former president is fueling birtherism about  GOP hopeful Nikki Haley. Taking to his Truth Social account earlier this week, Trump posted a screenshot of a fake news report claiming that Haley is disqualified from being president or vice president because “reports indicate that her parents were not U.S. citizens at the time of her birth in 1972.” The former South Carolina governor and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N was born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa in Bamberg, South Carolina, to Sikh parents — Ajit Singh and Raj Kaur Randhawa who immigrated to the U.S. from Punjab.  

The report, which appeared on the conservative website The Gateway Pundit, explains what it means to be a “natural born citizen” under the U.S. Constitution, and falsely claims that because Haley’s Indian immigrant parents were not yet citizens when she was born in South Carolina, she is disqualified “from presidential or vice-presidential candidacy under the 12th amendment.”

Written by Jim Hᴏft, the report mentions an article by Paul Ingrassia that was published in American Greatness, a news and opinion website created following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In the article, Ingrassia, a member of President Trump’s National Economic Council, “meticulously examined the constitutional provision that has been at the heart of eligibility controversies involving political figures from John McCain to Kamala Harris,” Hoft says. 

This is not the first time Trump is lying about a presidential candidate’s citizenship.  He has spread the same lie about former President Barack Obama, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas.).

The New York Times notes that “the Constitution sets very few standards for presidential candidates.”They must be at least 35 years old, be a “natural-born” citizen, and have been a resident of the United States for 14 years,” according to the the official web portal of the U.S. federal government.

When Trump began attacking Obama about his citizenship and making demands for this birth certificate, Haley had wondered if she’d be a target, Jennifer Bendery wrote in Huff Post. “Even though I gave the [State of the Union] response, I won’t really feel like I made it until Donald Trump demands to see my birth certificate,” she said at the annual Gridiron Dinner in Washington, Bendery wrote, citing a report from The News&Observer. 

A few years later, Trump made Vice President Kamala Devi Harris his next target. He claimed that Harris possibly “doesn’t meet the requirements” to serve as vice president. She was born in Oakland, California to India-born-and-raised Shyamala Gopalan Harris and Donald Harris who was raised in Jamaica. 

Meanwhile, Haley is closing the gap between her and former President Trump in New Hampshire, two weeks out from the state’s primary. The University of New Hampshire/CNN poll shows the former South Carolina governor and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.S. at 32 percent among likely GOP primary voters, while the former president is leading with 39 percent. However, the Suffolk University/Boston Globe/USA TODAY survey puts Trump at 46 percent and Haley at 27 percent. Both polls indicate that she has surged into a clear second place in the Granite State with the backing of Gov. Chris Sununu.