Fellow Republicans are joining the rising chorus of criticism of party presidential nominee Donald Trump for his disparagement of the bereaved parents of U.S. army Capt. Humayun Khan, a Muslim awarded a Bronze Star after he was killed in 2004 in Iraq.
The roll of Republican senators publicly taking Trump to task reached at least five on Monday, including John McCain of Arizona, who said in a statement that the fact Trump won his party’s nomination doesn’t give him “unfettered licence to defame those who are the best among us.”
Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said the Khans “deserve our gratitude and honour; anything else is inappropriate.”
The other three senators, all running for re-election and distancing themselves from Trump’s controversial statements, are Roy Blunt of Missouri, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rob Portman of Ohio. Texas Representative Mac Thornberry, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he’s dismayed by criticism of the parents, and both Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan have issued statements praising Khan.
Pushing back, Trump complained Monday that he had been “viciously attacked” by Khan’s father at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia last week and in the days that have followed.
Trump broke a political and societal taboo over the weekend when he criticized Khizr and wife Ghazala Khan. Khizr Khan strongly criticized Trump during the convention and after, and his wife has joined in since then. Trump stoked further outrage by implying Ghazala Khan did not speak while standing alongside her husband at the convention because she is a Muslim woman.
Trump tweeted Monday:
Mr. Khan, who does not know me, viciously attacked me from the stage of the DNC and is now all over T.V. doing the same – Nice!
This story is not about Mr. Khan, who is all over the place doing interviews, but rather RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM and the U.S. Get smart!
Khizr Khan told CNN on Monday that he and his wife “want to be out of this controversy. That is not our style. … We want to maintain our dignity,” even as the couple kept up a round of TV appearances.
His wife said: “My religion or my family or my culture never stopped me from saying what I want to say. I have all the rights as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter.”
On Monday, Blunt advised Trump to “focus on jobs and national security and stop responding to every criticism whether it’s from a grieving family or Hillary Clinton.” Senators running for re-election — and Senate and House leaders — are concerned that the Republican nominee will damage their own campaigns.
The continuing controversy risks setting back whatever progress Trump made during his convention at winning over the independent voters who will probably be key in the fall election.
Yet he has repeatedly made inflammatory statements at little apparent political cost — and sometimes to his benefit — going back to the beginning of the campaign when he challenged the heroism of McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and branded Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. Many of his supporters have been drawn to his tendency to say the politically unthinkable. The question is whether this, finally, is a step too far.
Trump takes on parents of slain Muslim soldier2:34
For the second time in a week, Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, issued a statement that appeared designed to put some space between the two men. The father of a marine, Pence said Sunday that he and Trump believe Capt. Khan is a hero and his family “should be cherished by every American.”
Last week, Pence said Russia would face “serious consequences” for meddling in U.S. elections at roughly the same time Trump appeared to encourage it, telling reporters he would welcome Russia unearthing emails that Clinton deleted from the private servers she used while secretary of state.
Pence’s statement came after an afternoon of debate among his aides as to whether he should find a way to dissociate himself subtly from Trump’s comments, according to a person familiar with the internal campaign conversations who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss them publicly.
At the Democratic convention, the Pakistan-born Khizr Khan told his son’s story, questioned whether Trump had ever read the Constitution and said “you have sacrificed nothing.” During the speech, Ghazala Khan stood quietly by his side.
Trump speculated in an ABC News interview, with excerpts posted on Saturday, that Capt. Khan’s mother remained silent last Thursday as her husband spoke because “maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say.”
Donald Trump vs. the Khan family2:28
The following day, during an interview with MSNBC, Ghazala Khan said she didn’t speak because she’s still overwhelmed with grief.
“When Donald Trump is talking about Islam, he is ignorant,” she wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece that appeared online Sunday. “Donald Trump said he has made a lot of sacrifices. He doesn’t know what the word sacrifice means.”
Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Khizr Khan said Trump showed disrespect toward his wife, and that the country needs to be run by someone with a “moral compass.”
Slain Muslim soldier’s father blasts Donald Trump for ‘ignorant’ comments1:05