Khizr Khan, with his wife Ghazala, talk at the 2016 Democratic Convention about their son U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who died in 2004 in a vehicle bomb in Iraq at the age of 28.
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Addressing Trump directly he said, “Let me ask you, have you even read the U.S. Constitution?”.
“His wife, if you look at his wife, she was standing there”.
She was responding to an ABC News interview in which Republican nominee Donald Trump lashed out at the Khan family and Mrs. Khan in particular.
Khan’s son was an Army Captain who was killed in Iraq while fighting.
In response, Mr Trump pointed to what he said was his strong work ethic and “tremendous success”, while taking a jab at Mr Khan’s wife, who stayed silent during the speech.
“I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures”, he added.
A visibly shaken Ghazala Khan spoke at length about her son during an interview with MSNBC on Friday.
“Don’t become a hero for me, come back as my son”, she said she told him.
Donald Trump has responded to the father of a fallen Muslim American soldier who criticized him during his DNC speech. And this is a time to honour the sacrifice of Captain Khan and all the fallen.
Clinton released a statement Saturday defending the Khans as “the best of America”.
Speaking to ABC America, Ms Khan said she chose not to speak knowing she would be too emotional, and that it had nothing to do with Islam.
Trump said in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “I think I’ve done a lot”, the 70-year-old said. “You tell me, but plenty of people have written that”. As a Muslim who immigrated from the United Arab Emirates to the US when his son was two years old, Khan represents what it means to be an American.
“I said: ‘I really don’t, I have my thoughts in my head, ‘ ” he told the Times. He pulled out a pocket-copy from the inside of his suit coat, in one of the most commented moments on the night that Hillary Clinton accepted her party’s nomination for president. During the speech, Mrs Khan stood silently by his side, wearing a headscarf.
Trump also questioned whether Khizr Khan, 65, a lawyer, really wrote the 11-paragraph speech he delivered directly and powerfully into the camera.
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“Have you ever been to Arlington cemetery?” he then asked. “So, it is very hard”, Ghazala said in the interview. “So the best thing I do was quiet”, she said. Ghazala Khan said “I didn’t feel anything except the pain…”
