“The framework of this election favors Donald Trump”.
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Sajid Tarar from American Muslims for Trump delivers the benidiction on the second day of the 2016 Republican National Convention at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, 19 July 2016. 67 per cent of Americans, a huge majority these days, disagred with the attack. We deserve leaders who will stand up to the outrageous rhetoric of Donald Trump, not cast their vote for him to be President of the United States.
It appears not in Trump’s case.
Shortly thereafter, Democratic Party representatives for thes Democratic Party contacted Khizr Khan to ask if they could pay tribute to his son’s memory at the party’s mid-year meeting, Khan told CNN this week.
“Capt. Humayun Khan gave his life in defense of our nation”, Jolly said.
This was the first time Trump mentioned Humayun Khan. He sacrificed his life, they reminded him.
His pause on interviewing, however, did not last long.
But Trump replied by suggesting that Khan’s mother had not “been allowed” to speak about her son.
It was as if the Democrats saw the speech Patricia Smith – the mother of Sean Smith, who died in the September 11, 2012, terror attack on the US consulate in Benghazi – delivered at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland two weeks ago and determined they needed their own version of the grieving parent.
“Captain Humayun Khan was a hero to our country and we should honor all who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country safe”, Trump said.
After Trump questioned why she didn’t speak, Ghazala Khan published an opinion piece in The Washington Post, explaining her silence on stage that night: “Without saying a thing, all the world, all America, felt my pain”.
The most bracing moment came when the grieving father offered to lend his own pocket Constitution to Trump, invited him to visit Arlington National Cemetery and declared in a halting but clear voice, “You have sacrificed nothing and no one”.
Reuters reached out to a dozen Muslim Gold Star families who lost a loved one in action after September 11, 2001. “I showed the constitution only because I wanted to remind people that nobody could be discriminated against in the name of religion”, said Khizr. “In this document, look for the words “liberty” and ‘equal protection of law'”.
Trump immediately took to social media to strike back at Khizr Khan.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars issued a statement stating that they, “will not tolerate anyone berating a Gold Star family member for exercising his or her right of speech or expression”. Just 37 percent say Trump does. If we run the campaign that we plan on running, we think we’re going to win.
“We should be making it harder for ISIL to portray this as a war between the United States and Islam, not easier”, he added, using an acronym for ISIS, or the Islamic State. The grieving father criticized Trump for lacking American “values”, and said his son would have never made it to the US if Trump had been in charge, as USA Today reported.
By the weekend his decision to compare his sacrifices to the Khans had blown up Twitter with the mocking hashtag, #TrumpSacrifice. He was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. “This is another example of a person who could really change the ideas some of the people in this country have”. In a speech that electrified the crowd, Khan directly addressed Donald Trump, calling into question numerous controversial comments made by the GOP candidate.
Former presidential candidate, Senator Lindsey Graham of SC, was incandescent.
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“She said several family members in the event were connected to Operation 300, a charity that Vaughn helped found in 2012 to benefit the children of fallen troops”, the Military Times details.
