LogFAQs > #980377836

You don't need to be born in the US. You just need to be a "natural born" citizen. Which has no technical definition but most people think as long as you were a citizen by some means when you were born then you're eligible. Republicans used to strictly say it can only be interpreted as you need to be born in the US, so that they could push conspiracies that Obama isn't eligible to be president by saying he was secretly born in Africa. Republicans had to make exceptions that John McCain was eligible though because he was born on a US base in Panama. But then they altogether changed their opinion on what "natural born" means again when Ted Cruz ran for president, and he is very plainly just born in Canada.

The fact that they're OK with the Ted Cruz definition now is funny too because it means the Obama-Kenya birth conspiracy was entirely meaningless. Even if he was born in Kenya, which he wasn't, he would still be eligible since his mother would have passed him American citizenship the same way as Ted Cruz. It goes without saying but it was entirely a racism-driven conspiracy. And it's oft-forgotten now, but Donald Trump was by far the absolute most massive propagator of the Obama-Kenya conspiracy and you could say it was largely the beginning of his getting directly into politics.