Khizr Khan: Donald Trump Lacks ‘Moral Compass’ And ‘Empathy’ For American Citizens
Khzir Khan, a Muslim-American speaker at the Democratic National Convention whose challenge to Donald Trump has prompted a back and forth with the Republican nominee, fired back again on Sunday in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press.
ICYMI on Meet the Press earlier today: https://t.co/9izPIFXOF5
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) July 31, 2016
The exchanges started when Khan, whose son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, died while serving in Iraq, used his speech at the DNC to call out Trump for his comments which denigrate Muslims, pitch building walls along the U.S.-Mexico border, and to note that the New York billionaire has sacrificed nothing for his country while his son Humayun, a Muslim, sacrificed his life.
Responding in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Trump sought to rectify any debate surrounding questions of sacrifices made in his life.
“I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I’ve had tremendous success. I think I’ve done a lot.”
Leaving no stone unturned, Trump also took the opportunity to deliver what many believed to be a backhanded comment at the family’s faith in reference to Khizr’s wife.
“If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.”
As Khan spoke to host Chuck Todd, he delivered sharp criticism of the Republican’s temperament.
“Stewardship of this country needs to be in the hands of the person who has moral compass, who can relate, who has some empathy with the citizens he wishes to lead. This candidate is void of both.”
Khan’s wife, Ghazala Khan, writing in the Washington Post, also issued a rebuttal to Trump’s later comments directed at her which suggested that Islamic dogma forbade her from speaking freely about the loss of her son.
“Donald Trump said that maybe I wasn’t allowed to say anything. That is not true. My husband asked me if I wanted to speak, but I told him I could not. My religion teaches me that all human beings are equal in God’s eyes. Husband and wife are part of each other; you should love and respect each other so you can take care of the family.”
Ghazala, a Gold Star mother, also wrote about the pain of the loss she has experienced over losing her son, also noting that while not speaking, any who witnessed “felt [her] pain” as she stood beside her husband on stage in Philadelphia, expressing further that she could “hardly control [herself]” emotionally.
In an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, appeared to walk away from direct questions about the former’s remarks about trivializing the death of a U.S. soldier.
“Mr. Trump and all of us give him our sympathy and empathy for the loss of his son. I mean, that was a real tragedy… The issue is not Mr. Khan and Donald Trump, the issue really is radical Islamic jihad and the risk to the American homeland. That’s the issue.”
In all, Manafort stuck to defending his party’s nominee, dismissing further questions by Dickerson as talking points of the Hillary Clinton campaign.
[Photo by Evan Vucci/AP Images]
