They'll decide who is a natural born" citizen and who isn't. #becauseconstitution

You write that the term “natural born citizen” is “often misunderstood or deliberately twisted.” How so? Can you give me a specific example of that?

When the challenge was made against Barack Obama, people said “how dare you question he’s a natural born citizen because he was born in Hawaii." Even if he was born in Hawaii, that does not make him a natural born citizen. It’s a very strict term. I won’t say very strict -- there’s a real meaning to the term, it’s not that it’s perfectly defined but the understanding is well understood. The understanding is that you be born of American parents with unquestioned loyalty to the United States. So for instance, had Obama been born [somewhere] other than Hawaii he would not have been eligible to run for President. Even though his mother was an American, just like Ted Cruz’s mother was American, the difference is that according to the law you’d have to be an American citizen for five years after the age of 14. She simply wasn’t old enough to confer that status on Obama. If his mother had been a non-American citizen and his father had been a Kenyan, and neither had any allegiance to the United States, which in fact neither of them really did, he would not have been eligible no matter where he was born.

So the question comes up about Bobby Jindal’s parents. Both of them were in the United States on student visas. To me the real question is does the candidate have any divided allegiance. So if Jindal’s parents remained steadfastly identifying as Indians and he steadfastly identified as an Indian, even though he was born in the United States and was a citizen, he would not be eligible. Legitimately, he would not be eligible to be President. But given the fact that he changed his name after a character in “The Brady Bunch" -- as American as it gets -- I don’t think there’s any question in any of those candidates that there’s any dual allegiance. That’s what the law was designed to prevent, was people with dual allegiance. Especially in the early Republic when you had people who were from England or from France and who really reported back to the motherland first. Even if they were born here they might be children of a diplomat or something like that. The fact that you are a citizen doesn’t make you a natural born citizen.

I was going to ask you about that, because Jindal’s parents have been living and working here since the 1970s. His mother worked for the state of Louisiana. From what I’ve read, the family even stopped making trips to India to see relatives in the early 1990s. If somebody from that fringe 1 percent was to question Jindal’s eligibility, do you think they could make that argument?

They could, and they do, and they will. They have, because they are very, very strict readers, as I found out. I had a lot of comments. Most of the comments were fine, none of them were profane. A few of them were kind of angry, like, ‘You haven’t read deeply enough. Didn’t you read Vattel’s 1758 Law Of Nations.’ The intent of the law is to prevent people with split allegiances from becoming President of the United States, no matter where they were born.

As I judge the crop of candidates who are suspect, that is Jindal, Cruz, Rubio and Santorum, they all pass that test. Others who have more finely tuned constitutional noses than I do may smell a rat. I just don’t smell it.

Same thing with Obama. If Obama were born in the United States, I don’t think you could legitimately challenge his status as a natural born citizen.