Meanwhile, President Barack Obama joined the fray later on Monday, implicitly rebuking Trump for his comments, while his party member Senator John McCain condemned businessman-turned-politician’s remarks and urged the GOP nominee to “set an example for the USA”.
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Alaska’s senior US senator, Lisa Murkowski, said in a statement that Gold Star families who have lost loved ones in war “deserve our unconditional love and support for the burden of supreme sacrifice that has fallen squarely on their shoulders”.
Democratic President Barack Obama chimed in, too, addressing the Disabled American Veterans in Atlanta. “His name will live forever in American memory, as an example of true American greatness”.
Trump drew similar opprobrium a year ago when he said McCain, who as a naval aviator was shot down and taken prisoner during the Vietnam War, was not a hero since he had been captured. In an emotional speech that received rapturous applause, Pakistan-born Khizr Khan asked if Trump had read the Constitution, and said if it were up to Trump, his son never would have been American or served in the military.
Senator McCain, from Arizona and a leading voice on military matters in Congress, waded into a snowballing dispute between his party’s controversial nominee and Khizr and Ghazala Khan, issuing the strongest rebuke yet to Mr Trump from a senior Republican on the issue.
Veterans of foreign wars released a statement bashing Trump, saying, “to ridicule a gold star mother is out-of-bounds”.
He thanked the Khan family for immigrating to America, saying, “We’re a better country because of you”.
“They try to make a political football out of it, and it’s not political”, Don Schauwecker said, an Indiana Gold Star parent.
Khan says he helps his clients buy real estate in the U.S.as well as start businesses.
Khizr and Ghazala Khan, parents of Army captain Humayun Kahn, who died serving in Iraq in 2004, spoke at the Democratic National Convention last week. She had nothing to say.
“That’s what freedom looks like and that’s what freedom sounds like”, Pence said of the Khans’s decision to speak.
Congressman Chris Carney, a former commander in the Navy Reserve, Manan Trivedi, former Lt. Commander in the Navy and congressional candidate, and Gale S. Pollock, retired USA army major general, all participated in a call with reporters this afternoon denouncing the Republican presidential nominee’s statements. Aides say Trump often professes to understand the risks of fueling a controversy, but he can get drawn back. Trump responded by attacking Khan’s wife, suggesting that she was not allowed to speak at the Democratic convention because she is a Muslim woman.
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Khan added that he pulled out a copy of the Constitution from his pocket during his convention speech, in part, to “show [Trump] that we are all equal under the eyes of our creator and this country”. Many of them have also disparaged The Donald’s comments about the Khans.
