Donald Trump slyly raised questions this morning about Marco Rubio‘s eligibility to be president.
Yesterday, Trump retweeted something a supporter sent to him that seemed to gin up questions about Rubio’s eligibility to be president in addition to Ted Cruz‘s:
"@ResisTyr: Mr.Trump…BOTH Cruz AND Rubio are ineligible to be POTUS! It's a SLAM DUNK CASE!! Check it! https://t.co/NjqWP0pP6X"
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 20, 2016
The video within features a litigation attorney talking about the concept of a natural-born citizen.
It’s a little confusing why this would be an issue at all for Rubio. He was born in Miami.
George Stephanopoulos asked Trump about that retweet on ABC’s This Week earlier today. Trump said his concern is “not so much with Marco,” since he’s “not that familiar with Marco’s circumstance.”
When pressed on why he RT’d it, then, Trump said, “Because I’m not sure. Let people make their own determination.”
Stephanopoulos asked Trump if he’s honestly not sure that Rubio, who was born in the United States, has an eligibility issue. Trump said, “I don’t know. I’ve never looked at it, George… Somebody said he’s not and I retweeted it.”
And in case you’re wondering if other people questioning Rubio’s eligibility is a thing, yes it is.
UPDATE – 6:25 P.M. EST Stephanopoulos got Rubio’s thoughts about Trump’s questioning his eligibility when he gave an interview later in the show. Chuckling and shrugging things off, Rubio said it was just another part of Trump’s game of saying outrageous things to hog media coverage.
Rubio suggested that the strategy won’t work like it used to when the GOP still had over ten candidates still in the race. “I’m gonna spend zero time on his interpretation of the Constitution with regards to eligibility and I’m gonna spend all my time talking about what this campaign should be about.”
Watch both interviews in the videos above, via ABC.
[image via screengrab]
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