Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig nic.neustar. NS
Answer
nic.neustar. 5 NS ns3.dns.nic.neustar.
nic.neustar. 5 NS a.nic.neustar.
nic.neustar. 5 NS b.nic.neustar.
nic.neustar. 5 NS c.nic.neustar.
nic.neustar. 5 NS ns1.dns.nic.neustar.
nic.neustar. 5 NS ns2.dns.nic.neustar.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
a.nic.neustar. 10133 A 37.209.192.9
b.nic.neustar. 10133 A 37.209.194.9
c.nic.neustar. 10133 A 37.209.196.9
a.nic.neustar. 10133 AAAA 2001:dcd:1:0:0:0:0:9
b.nic.neustar. 10133 AAAA 2001:dcd:2:0:0:0:0:9
c.nic.neustar. 10133 AAAA 2001:dcd:3:0:0:0:0:9
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0