Former President Donald Trump promoted a conspiracy theory Tuesday that wrongly charged his Republican rival, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, can’t be elected president because her parents weren’t US citizens when she was born.
Trump, 77, shared the false claim about his fellow GOP presidential candidate when he posted a Gateway Pundit article to his Truth Social platform.
“In Nikki Haley’s situation, reports indicate that her parents were not U.S. citizens at the time of her birth in 1972,” the far-right website stated.
“Based on the Constitution as interpreted by @Paulingrassia, this disqualifies Haley from presidential or vice-presidential candidacy under the 12th Amendment.”
The “legal scholar” cited in the article is a 2022 Cornell Law School grad.
The 12th Amendment lays out the procedure for electing the president and vice president and makes no mention of eligibility.
Experts were quick to debunk the claim that the 51-year-old former ambassador to the United Nations was ineligible to hold the country’s highest office, noting that the 14th Amendment clearly states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” are citizens.
“Having been born in South Carolina, she is clearly a ‘natural born citizen,’ without regard to the fact that her parents were immigrants,” said Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago professor who is an expert on constitutional law.
Stone ripped the claims as “bonkers” and argued there was no legitimate case that would disqualify Haley from the presidency based on her parents’ citizenship.
Haley — who was born in 1972 in Bamberg, SC — has repeatedly and proudly mentioned her Indian parents’ immigrant history on the campaign trial.
Her father, Ajit Randhawa, became a US citizen six years after Haley’s birth in 1978, while her mom, Raj Randhawa, was naturalized in 2003, her office has previously said.
Haley’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Tuesday wasn’t the first time Trump — whose paternal grandparents were German immigrants; whose mother emigrated from Scotland to the US as a teenager; and whose current wife, Melania, was born in Slovenia and moved to the US under a travel visa — has leaned into birther claims about his rivals.
The ex-commander-in-chief spent years suggesting former President Barack Obama was born in Kenya instead of his native Hawaii.
Trump eventually conceded during his 2016 White House campaign that Obama “was born in the United States, period.”
The 45th president has also elevated the conspiracy that Vice President Kamala Harris isn’t legally eligible to serve as vice president because her mom was born in India and her father hails from Jamaica.
The latest smears against Haley come as new polls show her chipping away at Trump’s lead in the New Hampshire primary race.
A CNN survey released Tuesday and conducted by the University of New Hampshire, showed Haley trailing Trump by just seven percentage points among likely GOP voters in the Granite State.
With Post wires