Q: Have Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Keith Olbermann introduced a bill that would do away with the requirement that the U.S. president be a natural born citizen?
A: No. Pelosi’s office confirmed that she has not, and Olbermann is not even a member of Congress.
Donald Trump claims Illinois is “very seriously” looking at Sen. Ted Cruz’s eligibility to run for president and “may not even let him run.” That’s misleading.
Q: Is Sen. Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada, eligible to be the U.S. president?
A: Most likely. The legal consensus is that Cruz qualifies because he was born to a U.S. citizen living abroad, making him a U.S. citizen at birth.
Of all the nutty rumors, baseless conspiracy theories and sheer disinformation that we’ve dealt with at FactCheck.org during campaign 2008, perhaps the goofiest is the claim that Barack Obama is not a “natural-born citizen” and therefore not eligible to be president under the constitution.
This claim was first advanced by diehard Hillary Clinton supporters as her campaign for the party’s nomination faded, and has enjoyed a revival among John McCain’s partisans as he fell substantially behind Obama in public opinion polls.