Humayun Khan, stood silently alongside her husband at the Democratic National Convention because, as a Muslim, she was restricted from speaking.
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“You’ve got a son in the military, how do you tolerate this disrespect?” she asked Pence, referring to his son Michael, a Second Lieutenant in the Marines.
“Time and time again, [Donald] Trump has disrespected our nation’s armed forces and veterans. Go look at the graves of fearless patriots who died defending the United States of America”, Khan said.
Wagner added that it’s pretty novel to have a presidential candidate say anything beyond positive things about a family who’s lost an American soldier in a war.
Ohio Governor John Kasich in response to the episode tweeted that “There’s only one way to talk about Gold Star parents: with honour and respect”.
“That’s what freedom looks like, and that’s what freedom sounds like”, Pence said. “They’re here in our country, and who’s next?”
He went on to say that he honors her family’s and her son’s service to the country.
Trump said the father had no right to attack him and questioned of the campaign of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton wrote the speech.
McIntyre, 49, said she was undecided before the most recent addition to Trump’s wall of controversies, his attacks on Khan’s parents Khizr and Ghazala. “He will say whatever he wants to”, she said. That’s a big development for Clinton, who critics have routinely depicted as out of touch, and it’s possible that Khan’s speech drew a meaningful contrast between the candidates’ ability to relate to working-class Americans and military families.
So it might come as a surprise to hear a group of Gold Star families describe a private meeting with Trump as “warm” and “compassionate”.
When asked if Trump would endorse Ryan, the candidate said, “I’m not sure I’m there yet”, echoing Ryan’s own words to CNN about endorsing Trump in May.
Trump mocked Khan’s mother Ghazala and suggested she was not allowed to speak at the DNC because of her Muslim faith.
“I imagine the reason Donald Trump is doing that is to try to raise anxiety in the minds of voters and to hopefully, from his point of view, turn that anxiety into support for him”, Wagner said. “This is about a big problem that we have around the world, and that’s radical terror”.
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Trump first criticized McCain last summer during a town hall in Iowa when he questioned whether McCain, a Vietnam War pilot who spent several years undergoing torture as a prisoner of war after his plane was shot down, should really be considered a hero.
