Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims – 1.6 billion members of an entire religion – from entering the U.S. Khizr Khan addressed the Democratic National Convention last week to defend Muslim immigrants against Trump’s attacks, and cited the sacrifice his son and the rest of the Khan family made in the name of their adopted country. John McCain of Arizona leading the charge.
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Khizr Khan won headlines attacking Donald Trump at the Democratic National Convention.
The head of the VFW, the nation’s largest veterans group, with whom Trump appeared recently, called the comments “out of bounds” Monday.
Trump’s campaign later issued a statement calling Capt. Khan a hero but said Khizr Khan had no right to intimate Trump hasn’t read the Constitution. I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee.
Pence’s statement came after an afternoon of debate among his aides as to whether he should find a way to subtly distance himself from Trump’s comments, according to a person who spoke on condition of anonymity. He also criticized Rubio for not taking a harder stance against the real estate mogul.
Indeed, some Republicans said privately that it was the timing of this flare-up that had them on edge – the spectacle of their candidate tangling with a military family just three months before Election Day.
It’s one thing to let pass Trump’s defamation of him for having the bad luck to be held in confinement and tortured for five years, but what about the other prisoners of war who don’t have a platform. Khan said that if it had been up to Donald Trump, his son would have never had the chance to be an American.
“Captain Humayun Khan is an American hero who served his country honorably”, said Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Brentwood. “Instead, they were viciously attacked by Donald Trump, a bully who has put personal profit before serving our country at every opportunity”. Trump advisers have spent months trying to help the political novice do just that.
The continuing support for Trump from congressional leaders is mystifying in light of their objections to him.
Sen. Lamar Alexander “is grateful for the service of Captain Khan and the sacrifices he and his family have made for this country”, his spokesman said.
The president also took a veiled swipe at Trump for criticizing America’s military readiness. After winning the primary, he spent days criticizing a U.S. district court judge’s Mexican heritage. And few Democrats appear ready to declare Trump’s criticism of Khan a turning point.
“We know there isn’t anything we can say or do that will bring their loved one back”, Gibson wrote.
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Khan, a Muslim from Bristow, Virginia, was on tour in Iraq when he was killed by a suicide bomber on June 8, 2004. Khan’s speech was particularly poignant to him. Wait, what? He got a pointed question, in the context of American military heroism, about service to others, and responded as if he’d been asked to rattle off a few of his most fabulous attributes and accomplishments.
