"We're looking at it very seriously," Donald Trump says of potentially suing Ted Cruz

By Tierney McAfee
Updated February 16, 2016 12:40 PM
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Donald Trump says he’s considering suing GOP rival Ted Cruz to challenge the Canada-born Texas senator’s eligibility to be president.

“I’m thinking about it very seriously,” the GOP front-runner told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America Tuesday. “I already have a lawyer, we’re looking at it very seriously, we’re thinking about it.”

Most Constitutional scholars agree that Cruz, who was born in Calgary to an American mother and a Canadian father, is eligible to run for president. But Trump has repeatedly questioned the senator’s presidential qualifications under the Constitution’s “natural-born citizen” clause.

“He was born in Canada,” Trump said Tuesday. “Lawyers – many lawyers – are saying he doesn’t even have the right to run for president. He can’t be president because of the fact he was born in Canada, lived there for years. I mean, under that theory I guess Winston Churchill could be” president.

The threat of litigation comes one day after Trump released a written statement vowing to “immediately” sue Cruz unless he “retracted his lies” about Trump and took down attack ads about the billionaire businessman. “One of the ways I can fight back is to bring a lawsuit against him relative to the fact that he was born in Canada and therefore cannot be president,” Trump wrote. “If he doesn’t take down his false ads and retract his lies, I will do so immediately.”

On Good Morning America Trump called the Texas senator a “liar” who has misled voters on his stances.

“Ted Cruz is a liar,” he said. “I think he’s a very unstable person. I have never had somebody take something you believe in and say the exact opposite.”

Later on Tuesday, Trump said on CNN, “I will bring that lawsuit if he doesn’t apologize.”

Ted Cruz Drags Donald Trump’s Sister, a Judge, into the Mudfest

Cruz got personal in his retaliation on Monday, taking aim at Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a senior judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia. Trump has said in the past that his sister would make a good Supreme Court justice, but he recently told ABC he was joking.

“Now, it’s good to stand with your sister,” Cruz told reporters, according to The New York Times. “But Donald’s sister was a Bill Clinton-appointed federal appellate judge who is a radical pro-abortion extremist.”