Former President Donald Trump promoted a baseless claim that ex-United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, one of his opponents for the Republican presidential primary, does not meet the citizenship requirements to be president.

On his Truth Social site on Monday, Trump shared an image pointing to an article by Gateway Pundit, a far-right website with a history of publishing conspiracy theories, that suggested Haley is not eligible to be president or vice president because her parents were not U.S. citizens when she was born. 

The article cites an op-ed published on a separate site, American Greatness, by Paul Ingrassia, a fellow at the conservative think tank The Claremont Institute who briefly served on Trump’s National Economic Council.

Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution says to be eligible to serve as president, someone must be a natural-born citizen, be at least 35 years old and have lived within the U.S. for at least 14 years.

The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley, who served in Trump's administration, was born in South Carolina in 1972 and has lived in the United States her entire life.

Ingrassia argues that natural-born citizenship and birthright citizenship are not the same thing and that someone’s parents must also be citizens at the time of the birth for the child to be considered a natural-born citizenship. 

Ingrassia cites in his essay other lawyers who have made the same argument. The Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898, “The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen.”

Neither the Trump nor Haley campaigns responded to emails from Spectrum News on Wednesday seeking comment. 

It’s a familiar tactic for the GOP front-runner. Trump has a well-documented past of questioning the citizenship and presidential eligibility of his political rivals, all people of color.

He famously led the birther movement that accused former President Barack Obama of being born in Kenya. In 2016, after five years of promoting the claim, Trump acknowledged Obama was born in the United States.

Also in 2016, Trump suggested Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, one of his opponents in the Republican presidential primaries that year, was not a natural-born citizen because he was born in Canada to an American mother. Previous presidential candidates who were born outside the U.S. to parents who were citizens have been considered eligible.

And in 2020, Trump amplified a claim similar to the one about Haley — that Sen. Kamala Harris of California, then the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, was not eligible for the job because her parents were immigrants.  

Harris was born in Oakland, California. Her father was born in Jamaica, and her mother was born in India.

Trump’s latest “birther” endorsement comes as he’s defending his own eligibility on ballots. A Colorado court and Maine’s top election official have ruled that Trump should be disqualified from the presidency under a clause in the 14th Amendment because he engaged in insurrection. 

Trump has appealed both rulings. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear his appeal in the Colorado case, a decision that is expected to have ramifications in other states.

Trump has vowed to end birthright citizenship if elected again.