Before his run for president, Donald Trump’s most famous political position was his questioning of President Barack Obama’s birthplace—he was one of the leaders in the “birther” movement insisting Obama was born in Kenya and demanding he show his longform birth certificate. Now, the New York businessman has questions about the birthplace of a different politician—his rival for the Republican nomination, Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
This situation is a bit different from the Obama one. Cruz was born in Canada, but his mother is a U.S. Citizen. He has always said that because his mother was a natural-born citizen, he is too, according to the Washington Post, and most constitutional scholars agree.
Trump, though, thinks it could be an issue in an election. From the Post:
“Republicans are going to have to ask themselves the question: ‘Do we want a candidate who could be tied up in court for two years?’ That’d be a big problem,” Trump said when asked about the topic. “It’d be a very precarious one for Republicans because he’d be running and the courts may take a long time to make a decision. You don’t want to be running and have that kind of thing over your head.”
Cruz replied on Twitter with this:
My response to @realDonaldTrump calling into question my natural-born citizenship? Https://t.co/gWfAHznlCY
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 5, 2016
That’s a clip from the 1970s sitcom Happy Days of the character Fonzie jumping over a shark on waterskis. The scene inspired the phrase “jumping the shark” to describe a show or other phenomenon becoming bad or delving into self-parody.