John McCain’s primary election challenger Dr. Kelli Ward called the 2008 Republican Party Presidential nominee “more critical of Cruz than he has been of Obama” after he questioned 2016 Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz’s eligibility to hold the office of President.
Ward recalls listening to the Wednesday edition of the Chris Merrill radio program as McCain spoke of Cruz’s citizenship status. Merrill asked McCain if 2016 Presidential candidate Donald Trump “jumped the shark” when asking about Cruz having been born in Canada and whether it affects his eligibility to run for the office.
McCain — who faced a similar question concerning his birth when he ran for President in 2008 — said, “I don’t know how to answer that.”
Ward told Breitbart News, “I was listening to the show live and I was stunned when I heard what John McCain said. I couldn’t believe my ears – he was questioning Ted Cruz’s citizenship when he was born in a similar situation himself!”
McCain was born in Panama in the Canal Zone, a U.S. Territory, as he explained to radio host Merrill. “Yeah, it was a U.S. military base,” he said. He told the host, “I know it came up in my race because I was born in Panama, but I was born in the Canal Zone which is a territory. Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona when it was a territory when he ran in 1964.”
Though McCain has been in elected office for over 30 years and ran for the office of President, he told host Merrill, “I am not a Constitutional scholar on that, but I think it’s worth looking into.”
2016 Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called McCain her favorite Republican. When 2016 Republican Presidential candidate Trump held a very large rally on border security in Phoenix, Arizona last July, McCain labeled those in attendance “crazies.”
Ward commented further:
This is just one more reason that our next conservative president needs strong reinforcements in Congress. Can you imagine what a President Ted Cruz would have to deal with if we still have a Senator John McCain in the Senate?
McCain has been more critical of Cruz than he has been of Obama. Mr. McCain’s disdain for conservatives has gone too far – his desire to cling to the empire he has created for himself inside the Beltway has clouded his vision. The people of Arizona and the US are looking to change DC and the status quo. Questions like this by a senior senator regarding a top contender for the presidency from the same party are divisive and unnecessary.
Ward, a practicing medical doctor and up until recently an Arizona State Senator, is challenging McCain for his seat in the U.S. Senate in 2016. First quarter fundraising for Ward’s campaign came to a monumental $525,000, a feat only surpassed by Ted Cruz in first quarter fundraising for a non-incumbant Senate candidate.
Breitbart News legal columnist Ken Klukowski, a constitutional lawyer, has reported on Cruz’s eligibility not only this week, but back in March of 2013. In his most recent analysis, Klukowski points to an apparent consensus from both liberal and conservative law experts that “a person born to an American mother in Canada,” such as Cruz, “is a natural born citizen”
Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana
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