“For this candidate for presidency to not be aware of the respect of a Gold Star mother standing there, and he had to take that shot at her, this is height of ignorance”, Khan said, referring to parents of troops who are killed serving their country.
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Hillary Clinton campaign spokeswoman Karen Finney tweeted: “Trump is truly shameless to attack the family of an American hero”.
Khan and his wife, Ghazala, shared their son’s story at the convention. “She had nothing to say”, Trump said, adding that “maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say”.
“I’d like to hear his wife say something”, the Republican presidential nominee told a New York Times reporter, sparking outrage and mockery. Trump said in an interview with ABC News. “She was extremely quiet and it looked like she had nothing to say”, he said.
Recalling she and her husband’s concern over their son’s safety after his deployment to Iraq, Khan referred to her own experiences going through the war in Pakistan as a high school student in 1965.
Ghazala said there was a reason she didn’t address the convention, but it had nothing to do with her not being allowed to do it.
Khizr Khan responded to the Trump interview saying: “Running for president is not an entitlement to disrespect Gold Star families and [a] Gold Star mother not realizing her pain”.
Khizr Khan said Sunday that Trump’s questions about his wife represent the “height of ignorance”. He said to Trump: “You have sacrificed nothing”.
Trump responded by telling ABC’s “This Week”, that he’s made “a lot of sacrifices“.
Hillary Clinton has defended the bereaved parents of a Muslim US army captain, saying Donald Trump displayed a “total misunderstanding” of American values in his criticism of the couple and had inflamed divisions in society.
Both Democrats and Republicans have criticized Trump’s remarks about the Khans.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is asking Muslim women activists to “tweet about who they are and how they speak out”, according to a press release. “You have sacrificed nothing and no one”, Khizr Khan said.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has previously raised concerns about Trump’s previous comments about Muslims.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine also expressed shock at Trump’s comments on the Khans, stating that his remarks demonstrated his “temperamental unfitness”.
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Clinton at a campaign rally Saturday night in Youngstown, Ohio, said the Khans specifically and Muslims generally are the most recent recipients of Trump’s insults, and referenced his past statements about immigrants and the disabled. “Captain Khan and his family represent the best of America, and we salute them”. “If we stand for anything we have to stand together and end all forms of racism”.
