Donald Trump is up against a mounting backlash as the confrontation between him and the parents of a slain Pakistani-American Muslim soldier have quickly snowballed into a major controversy, prompting top Republican leaders to distance themselves from Trump’s comments and hail the sacrifice of the soldier and his family.
House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell obliquely criticized Trump as they said that the sacrifice of the soldier, Army Captain Humayun Khan, and his family should always be honoured.
Significantly, they also came out strongly against Trump’s proposal for a temporary ban on all Muslims entering the United States, commenting that a religious test for entering our country was “simply contrary to American values”.
“Many Muslim Americans have served valiantly in our military, and made the ultimate sacrifice. Captain Khan was one such brave example. His sacrifice — and that of Khizr and Ghazala Khan — should always be honored. Period,” Ryan said in a statement.
The spat between Trump and Khizr Khan, father of the soldier who died in the Iraq war in 2004, appeared to roil the US presidential race as it played out across all major American television channels and social media for the third day on Monday.
In his series of media interviews on Sunday, Khan, who said Trump does not know what sacrifice is, branded the New York billionaire “a black soul” who lacked “a moral compass”.
And his wife, Gazala Khan, writing an opinion piece in The Washington Post, said: “Donald Trump said he has made a lot of sacrifices. He doesn’t know what the word sacrifice means.”
“Donald Trump said I had nothing to say. I do. My son Humayun Khan, an Army captain, died 12 years ago in Iraq. He loved America, where we moved when he was 2 years old,” she wrote, adding: “I am a Gold Star mother. Whoever saw me felt me in their heart.”
While Ryan and McConnell did not name Trump, senior Republican Senator John McCain directly hit out him, saying: “While our party has bestowed upon him the nomination, it is not accompanied by unfettered licence to defame those who are the best among us.”
Commenting that Trump has “disparaged a fallen soldier’s parents”, McCain said, adding how deeply he disagrees with Trump’s other suggestion that the likes of Captain Khan should not be allowed in the United States — to say nothing of entering its service”.
With Khan continuing to be interviewed by TV networks on Monday, Trump got active on Twitter again, commenting: “Mr Khan, who does not know me, viciously attacked me from the stage of the DNC and is now all over TV doing the same — Nice!”
In a tactical move in an apparent bid to walk back from the controversy that is seen to be damaging for Trump, his vice-presidential running mate Mike Pence put out a statement on Sunday night, saying: “Donald Trump and I believe that Captain Humayun Khan is an American hero and his family, like all Gold Star families, should be cherished by every American.”
Amid the raging controversy, a number of other “Gold Star families” of service members who died fighting for America came forward, demanding an apology from Trump.
In a joint letter, members of 11 Gold Star families — a term used for families that have lost their loved ones in military service — termed Trump’s comments “repugnant, and personally offensive”.