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| Ghazala and Khizr Khan drew the wrath of GOP candidate Donald Trump. |
KHIZR KHAN's speech was not expected to be the emotional haymaker that it has become. At the Democratic National Convention, while talking about his son's ultimate sacrifice of slain Army Captain Humayun Kahn. He looked into the camera and uttered some of the most memorable lines of the convention, "Mr. Trump, you have sacrificed nothing and no one."
The Pakistani/American father, with his wife, Ghazala, standing beside him, may have uttered the line of the convention when he said, "Have you even read the U.S. Constitution?" He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pamphlet and waved it at the camera, "I will gladly lend you mine."
Apparently, he touched a nerve, drawing the ire of the Republican presidential candidate. “Who wrote that? Did Hillary’s scriptwriters write it?” Trump asked in an interview with ABC the next day.
“I saw him. He was, you know, very emotional," Trump told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos. "And probably–looked like a nice guy to me. His wife uh, 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. But plenty of people have written that. She was extremely quiet. And it looked like she had nothing to say. A lot of people have said that. And personally, I watched him, I wish him the best of luck.”
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Trump pointed to the sacrifices he has made as a businessman: “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,” Trump said.
“I think my popularity with the vets is through the roof,” he added later.
Trump's comments attracted a lot of attention defending the Khans, even from his fellow Republicans.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan have both come out with statements condemning Trump's statements without mentioning the candidate by name.
"All Americans should value the patriotic service of the patriots who volunteer to selflessly defend us in the armed services. And as I have long made clear, I agree with the Khans and families across the country that a travel ban on all members of a religion is simply contrary to American values," McConnell wrote.
Similarly, Ryan stated: “America's greatness is built on the principles of liberty and preserved by the men and women who wear the uniform to defend it. As I have said on numerous occasions, a religious test for entering our country is not reflective of these fundamental values. I reject it.
"Many Muslim Americans have served valiantly in our military, and made the ultimate sacrifice," Ryan continued. "Captain Khan was one such brave example. His sacrifice -- and that of Khizr and Ghazala Khan -- should always be honored. Period.”
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As it turns out, the Khans didn't need any help defending themselves.
"Running for president is not an entitlement to disrespect Gold Star families and [a] Gold Star mother not realizing her pain. Shame on him! Shame on his family!" Khizr Khan said, struggling to hold back his anger during an MSNBC interview. "He is not worthy of our comments. He has no decency. He is void of decency, he has a dark heart."
In an opinion piece written for the Washington Post, Ghazala Khan, wrote: "I cannot walk into a room with pictures of Humayun. For all these years, I haven’t been able to clean the closet where his things are — I had to ask my daughter-in-law to do it. Walking onto the convention stage, with a huge picture of my son behind me, I could hardly control myself. What mother could? Donald Trump has children whom he loves. Does he really need to wonder why I did not speak?"
"Sacrifice -- I don't think he knows the meaning of sacrifice, the meaning of the word," Ghazala Khan, "Because when I was standing there, all America felt my pain. Without saying a single word. Everybody felt that pain."
Khizr Khan said Trump's response was “typical of a person without a soul. ... What he said originally — that defines him . . . people are upset with him. He realizes, and his advisers feel, that [his original statement] was a stupid mistake. That proves that this person is void of empathy. He is unfit for the stewardship of this great country. You think he will empathize with this country, with the suffering of this country’s poor people? He showed his true colors when he disrespected this country’s most honorable mother. . . . The snake oil he is selling, and my patriotic, decent Americans are falling for that. Republicans are falling for that. And I can only appeal to them. Reconsider. Repudiate. It’s a moral obligation. A person void of empathy for the people he wishes to lead cannot be trusted with that leadership. To vote is a trust. And it cannot be placed in the wrong hands.”
As he was waiting at Pennsylvania train station to catch a train from the convention back to their Virginia home, Khizr Khan said strangers were standing in line to shake his hand. The quiet and private Khizr Khan has become a celebrity whether he likes it or not. He has done what millions of Muslim/Americans would like to do - ever since Trump proposed a ban on Muslim immigration and increased surveillance of all Americans who practice Islam - he put the GOP candidate in his place.
Not coincidentally, on Amazon, the pamphlet of the Constitution zoomed up to No.1 on the best seller list.
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