He said he was invited to speak at the convention by a campaign official who had read his remarks in an article published by Vocativ in which he criticized Trump’s statements on Muslims as un-American.
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Trump brushed off Khan’s words in an interview with ABC News, stating that he thinks he has made “a lot of sacrifices”. “I work very, very hard”.
Khizr Khan, whose son Army Capt. Humayun Khan died in Baghdad in 2004, delivered one of the most powerful speeches of the Democratic National Convention. His father, a 66-year-old immigration lawyer originally from Pakistan, castigated Mr Trump for his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, saying that under a Trump presidency, his son would never have been born in the country, let alone allowed to serve in its armed forces.
By Saturday afternoon Trump’s comparison of his own sacrifices to Khan’s had blown up to blew on Twitter into a hashtag, #TrumpSacrifices. “You have sacrificed nothing”.
As for President Barack Obama’s speech, which was laced with warnings about electing someone like Trump, the Republican nominee said it was “a good speech but not almost as good as the press would have you believe”.
Trump also questioned whether his rival, Hillary Clinton, had been behind Khan’s address, which the father said he wrote with his wife Ghazala.
Pressed by Stephanopoulos to name the sacrifices he’d made for his country, Trump said: “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices”.
Her husband added that she served as his “coach” while writing the speech and said she gave him the strength to speak on stage.
In an interview, Mrs Khan said she did not speak because she was ‘in pain’.
‘That’s why when I saw the picture at my back I couldn’t take it, and I controlled myself at that time. “It will be heart-to-heart”. Maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say.
“What he has said, what he has threatened to do … you must say ‘enough, ‘ ” Khan said.
Asked whether those should be considered sacrifices, Trump responded: “I think when I can employ thousands and thousands of people, take care of their education, take care of so many things, even in military”. He was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart posthumously. “It is very hard”.
Post-convention it has become clear the presidential race will be fought in the struggling manufacturing towns, cities and rural farming communities of the Rust Belt, as Clinton used the days following her convention to try and win back some of the white working class voters that once made up a key piece of the Democratic Party’s electoral coalition.
Trump also complimented the first lady’s convention remarks.
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The billionaire then blamed Clinton’s speech writers for scripting the address and defended him against the accusation that he has sacrificed nothing for America.
