Father of Slain Soldier Volleys Back at Donald Trump
Khizr Khan, father of Muslim U.S. Army captain, says he isn’t a proxy for the Hillary Clinton campaign
The father of a Muslim U.S. Army captain killed saving his troops from a suicide bomber said he isn’t a proxy for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign despite taking swipes at Donald Trump in a Democratic convention speech that has spurred a tense exchange with the GOP nominee.
Khizr Khan, who said in an interview Sunday that he would happily speak before Republican groups if asked, was hardly known before several days ago. But the flare-up with Mr. Trump dominated campaign coverage over the weekend. During the convention appearance last week with his wife, Ghazala, Mr. Khan criticized Mr. Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the U.S., brandishing a pocket copy of the Constitution and questioning whether Mr. Trump had ever read the document.
That appearance provoked a response from Mr. Trump, who bristled at Mr. Khan’s contention that he had never had to sacrifice anything, and he wondered why Mrs. Khan was “extremely quiet” onstage.
In an interview, Mr. Khan described himself as a political independent and said he is gratified that prominent Republicans have defended him in the exchange with Mr. Trump. He mentioned supportive statements on Sunday from House Speaker Paul Ryan and from Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, and added, “If Republicans invite me [to speak at an event] I have no problem at all. I’ll go and speak.”
Mr. Khan’s speech Thursday night touched off a turbulent debate that has spread with viral speed online and was a rare moment when an ordinary American speaking about his personal experiences in the context of the political times can break through. An attorney, Mr. Khan’s indictment of Mr. Trump and his proposed temporary ban on Muslims from entering the U.S. has become a powerful argument for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, even as he said his role in the campaign wasn’t designed to be partisan.
He added in the interview, “I’m not a registered Democrat or Republican. I vote for whoever I feel.”
But Mr. Khan made clear that, to him, Mr. Trump is an unacceptable choice for president, saying the GOP candidate’s family needs to “sit him down and teach him empathy.”
“Without empathy you cannot lead,” he added. “It’s the first characteristic of a leader.”
Responding to Mr. Khan’s contention in the speech that Mr. Trump had “sacrificed nothing and no one,” Mr. Trump, on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday, cited the “thousands and thousands of jobs” he created as examples of his sacrifice. He then ignited another furor by saying Mrs. Khan perhaps “wasn’t allowed to have anything to say” onstage at the convention.
Mr. Khan chafed at that remark. He said in the interview that his wife played an active role in editing his speech and reiterated that Mr. Trump is showing no compassion. “He says my wife is not allowed to talk because of our religion,” said Mr. Khan, 66 years old. “Now who is attacking whom?”
As criticism toward Mr. Trump built over the weekend, he issued a statement calling the Khans’ son, Capt. Humayun Khan, a “hero” and saying the “real problem” is “the radical Islamic terrorists.” He said on Twitter Sunday morning that he had been “viciously attacked” by Mr. Khan and suggested he had to respond.
“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,” Mr. Trump said in the statement.
Mrs. Khan responded to Mr. Trump in the Washington Post on Sunday, writing that her grief makes it impossible to walk into rooms with pictures of her son, and that she couldn’t compose herself enough to speak in the Democratic convention hall where a large photo of Capt. Khan was displayed.
“Without saying a thing, all the world, all America, felt my pain,” she wrote. “I am a Gold Star mother. Whoever saw me felt me in their heart.”
In Ohio Sunday, Mrs. Clinton went after Mr. Trump. “He has throughout the course of his campaign consistently insulted and demeaned individuals, groups of Americans, people around the world. And one doesn’t know where the bottom is,” Mrs. Clinton said in a campaign stop in Ashland. “The accumulation of it all is just beyond my comprehension.”
From an early point in their convention planning, Clinton campaign officials knew they wanted Mr. Khan to be one of the featured speakers, a person close to the matter said. The campaign was familiar with the Khans and their family’s tragedy. Capt. Khan, one of their three sons, was killed in a car-bomb explosion in Iraq in 2004.
Mrs. Clinton had given a speech in Minneapolis in December 2015 devoted to national security, and toward the end she spoke about Capt. Khan’s death, drawing from an interview with the father that appeared a week earlier on the website Vocativ.
That speech by Mrs. Clinton came shortly after Mr. Trump had proposed his ban on Muslims, and the Clinton campaign believed Mr. Khan’s story of his son’s sacrifice would reinforce the campaign’s message on religious and racial tolerance. Campaign officials invited him to take a prime speaking slot at the convention.
“We have reached out, and I spoke about Capt. Khan many months ago, so I was aware of their sacrifice,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters Sunday.
Mr. Khan said the Clinton campaign hasn’t asked him to be any sort of surrogate on the campaign trail. If asked, though, he said he would be willing to appear at Clinton events if his schedule permitted.
Born in Pakistan, Mr. Khan studied law in that country before moving to Dubai in the mid-1970s. He said he came to the U.S. in 1980 and became a citizen six years later. He and his wife now live in Charlottesville, Va., where he works as a consultant on legal cases.
“Folks who are planning to vote for Donald Trump, I would ask them to reconsider,” Mr. Khan said in the interview. “It will be a moral burden on them because of the policies he said he’s going to implement.”
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