Trump spent years calling for political candidates to be stricken from ballots
What goes around has come around for former President Donald Trump, who spent years arguing then-President Barack Obama and other Democrats didn't qualify for a place on American electoral ballots.
That's the latest reminder from the New York Times' "Trump whisperer" Maggie Haberman, published on the heels of a historic Colorado Supreme Court ruling banning Trump from the state's presidential ballot.
Haberman referenced Trump's notorious "birther movement" that saw him falsely claim Obama was not born in the U.S. and therefore could not be president.
"Mr. Trump — who rose in politics in 2011 fanning a fringe lie that President Obama, the first Black U.S. president, may not have been eligible to serve — now finds himself contending with his own eligibility to hold office from the fallout of his actions after he lost in 2020," Haberman writes.
"But while most Republicans rejected his lies about Mr. Obama, a large number are backing Mr. Trump’s claim of being wronged."
Obama isn't the only Democrat Trump has argued should be disqualified, notes Washington Post analyst Aaron Blake.
"Trump is yet again suffering under a standard he himself attempted to set for America’s political system," writes Blake. "If the whole 14th Amendment exercise is the political farce that Trump says it is, he certainly played a role in writing the script."
Blake notes that Trump also tried to claim that Hillary Clinton should not “be allowed to run” for president because she had imperiled classified information — as a Wall Street Journal report notes he himself stands accused of — with a private email server.
“She shouldn’t be allowed to run for president,” Trump raged before the 2016 election. “I’m telling you, she should not be allowed to run for president."
There was also the time that Trump went after former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), saying he “should never ever be allowed to run for office” after his sexting scandal.
Nor has Trump targeted Democrats alone.
Trump also went after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who ran for president in 2016 and won the Iowa Caucus. Cruz had promoted a false claim that Ben Carson was suspending his campaign and Trump said that's why he lost to Cruz.
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