Donald Trump scrambled to defend himself and contain the political damage hours after he pushed back against the Muslim-American parents of a fallen U.S. war hero for their questioning of Trump’s level of personal sacrifice in a widely hailed appearance at the Democratic National Convention.
The Republican presidential nominee told ABC News in excerpts of an interview released Saturday that he had “sacrificed” for the U.S. by employing “thousands and thousands of people.” He also suggested that the mother of Army Captain Humayan Khan didn’t speak alongside her husband in Philadelphia because she was forbidden to, as a Muslim.
“Who wrote that? Did Hillary’s script writers write it?” Trump said in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard,” Trump said in a partial transcript made available by the network.
Late Saturday night, after a flood of negative reaction across the political spectrum, including from his general election rival Hillary Clinton, Trump said in a statement that Captain Khan “was a hero to our country and we should honor all who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country safe. The real problem here are the radical Islamic terrorists who killed him, and the efforts of these radicals to enter our country to do us further harm.”
“While I feel deeply for the loss of his son, Mr. Khan, who has never met me, has no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution, [which is false] and say many other inaccurate things,” Trump said of the father’s convention speech. “If I become President, I will make America safe again.”
Trump also said Clinton, President Barack Obama’s former secretary of state, “should be held accountable for her central role in destabilizing the Middle East” including her support of the invasion of Iraq.
Clinton told a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, that “Donald Trump is not a normal presidential candidate.”
“Somebody who attacks everybody has something missing” she said, noting Trump’s attack on “the distinguished father of a soldier who sacrificed himself for his unit, Captain Khan.”
Trump is “temperamentally unfit and unqualified” to be president, she said.
Earlier Clinton said in an e-mailed statement that she was “very moved to see Ghazala Khan stand bravely and with dignity in support of her son on Thursday night. And I was moved to hear her speak last night, bravely and with dignity, about her son’s life and the ultimate sacrifice he made for his country.”
“Captain Khan and his family represent the best of America,” Clinton said, calling on “all Americans” to stand with them and with other families who have lost children in service to the U.S. Margaret Talev, Jennifer Jacobs, Bloomberg
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