Khizr Khan, who spoke at the Democratic National Convention about his Muslim-American son who was killed in the Iraq War, said Donald Trump doesn’t understand the grief of his wife, a Gold Star mother.
“(I felt Trump had) total ignorance of the culture, total ignorance of the grief of a Gold Star mother,” Khan told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead.” “Time after time, then, before then, and up until now, Donald Trump has proven that he doesn’t neither the capacity, nor the capability, nor the character or the temperament for the highest office of this country that he seeks. So we were disappointed.”
After Khan spoke at the DNC, Trump criticized his wife, who stood next to Khan on the stage, for not speaking during the speech.
“I’d like to hear his wife say something,” Trump said in July.
Khan said the reason his wife didn’t speak at the convention was because she was “under such grief.”
“Mrs. Khan had spoken since then at many occasions. She’s very capable,” Khan said. “But that very moment she under such a grief because our son’s picture was in the background and she was totally unable to speak maintaining the dignity of the occasion, she insisted that she not speak otherwise she would fall apart at the stage. So we had agreed she would not speak.”
Khan was recently featured in a campaign ad for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and is actively campaigning on her behalf. An emotional Khizr Khan asked Trump in the ad whether his son would “have a place in your America?”
Early in his campaign, Trump proposed “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” That policy, aides say, has been refined to preventing immigration from countries that house terrorists, even though it’s still on his website.
Tapper asked Khan about former Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s statements, when Perry said Khan “struck the first blow.”
“Jake, my stand was ethical model on behalf of those who were scared when Trump made that statement about banning Muslims, throwing out Hispanic Americans from this country,” Khan responded. “It was that concern. It was that care that took us to the stage.”
He continued: “And we will do this a million times all over again. And I implore Republicans and the surrogates of Donald Trump. The caliber that your candidate has shown. The capacity that your candidate has shown. Rethink about this.”