WASHINGTON: Donald Trump reignited his very public feud with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, parents of a fallen American Muslim soldier, saying in a tweet on Monday he was “viciously attacked”.
He continued to be criticised for it, with Republican senator John McCain telling him that party nomination did not give him “unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us”.
And the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a leading advocacy group, demanded an apology from him for disparaging the Khans.
Trump tweeted: “Mr. Khan, who does not know me, viciously attacked me from the stage of the DNC (Democratic National Convention) and is now all over TV doing the same - Nice!”
Trump has both courted and weathered controversies before in the campaign and emerged surprisingly unscathed, specially among his supporters and a Republican party mostly too weary to resist. But remarks against the Khans, whose son Captain Humayun Khan was killed in Iraq in 2004, have appalled many in his own party.
McCain said in a statement, “While our party has bestowed upon him the nomination, it is not accompanied by unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us.”
{{/usCountry}}McCain said in a statement, “While our party has bestowed upon him the nomination, it is not accompanied by unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us.”
{{/usCountry}}The senator added it was time for Trump to “set the example for our country and the future of the Republican Party”.
McCain is a war hero himself, jailed for years during the Vietnam war. Earlier in the race, Trump had insulted him too, questioning his status as a war hero. It was a race-ending move, but he survived. Trump will survive this one too, but it won’t be easy, with the American-Muslim community, for long at the receiving end of his divisive diatribe, fighting back.