PolitiFact rates Trump’s claims about Cruz’s “joint passport” FALSE

FORT MYERS, Fla.- Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz campaigned in Iowa Friday ahead of the state’s caucuses. The six-day bus tour comes as the latest CNN/ORC poll shows Cruz is favored to win that state.

Earlier this week, his closest rival Donald Trump lodged an attack, calling into question Cruz’s American citizenship.

Ted Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother. Donald Trump says Cruz should as a judge for ‘declaratory judgement’ on his citizenship, saying it would protect Cruz against any future questions about his eligibility for the presidency during a general election.

Trump told reporters in New Hampshire that “people are worried if he weren’t born in this country, which he wasn’t, he was born in Canada.”

Trump also claims it wasn’t him who first raised the issue.

“Everybody tells me he had a joint passport,” said Trump during an interview on CNN.

Our team of researchers at PolitiFact looked at that statement. They rate it FALSE, saying there’s no such thing as a “joint passport.”

A Cruz spokesman says Cruz has never had a Canadian passport, nor has he ever applied for one.

Donal Trump’s campaign did not provide any evidence to the contrary.

Ted Cruz did have dual citizenship for much of his life, though he relinquished it in 2014.

Cruz told CBS News on Friday this is a “non issue” and these attacks are coming because the “candidates are getting nervous.”

To read the entire fact-check, click here.