Trump meets Gold Star families

Captain Khan, however, moved forward. Captain Humayun Khan was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star with a purple heart for his courageous move which saved the lives of the men he supervised.

Referring to Mr Trump’s plan to ban Muslims from entering the US, Mr Smith said: “You’re sitting down and some [jerk] on TV is saying Muslims are a threat to the country and they shouldn’t have constitutionally protected rights to be there?” When we put our uniforms on, we were not defined by our religion or ethnicity – we were all Americans, wanting to serve our country and defend the values we all hold dear. “Go look at the graves of the courageous patriots who died defending America”, Khan said in his speech.

The back and forth between Trump and the grieving Gold Star family has continued into this week, leading many Republicans to rebuke Trump.

“I like Paul, but these are disgusting times for our country”, Trump said in the Tuesday interview. Ms. Khan said she remained silent because she was too grief-stricken. “She probably – maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say”, Trump said.

The billionaire and former reality television star who hopes to lead the U.S. was “incapable intellectually and mentally” of understanding how he has helped boost recruitment for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group with his “fear-mongering”, Khan said. For us, they served as a symbol of the people we needed to take care of – the people to whom we owed everything. Veterans of Foreign Wars and at least five other veterans organizations have also spoken out against his repugnant behavior.

As he tends to do, Trump fired his own volley in response, in spite of the potential calamity that could occur in attacking a Gold Star family, Muslim or not.

Mr. Khan’s remarks can be boiled down to one sentence aimed at the Republican nominee: “You have sacrificed nothing and no one”.

“Neither Speaker Ryan nor anyone on his team has ever asked for Donald Trump’s endorsement”, said Zack Roday, Ryan’s campaign spokesman.

At the end of the day, at least for me, it comes down to sacrifice and the very meaning of the word.

Robert Spencer, co-founder of the anti-Muslim hate group Stop the Islamization of America (SOIA), wrote a piece for his blog Jihad Watch on August 2 claiming Khizr Khan and the Clintons “have extensive ties to the Saudis”.

America is already great – our experience speaks to that.

The Gold Star father gave several interviews in the following days, saying that the GOP presidential nominee lacks empathy and has a “black soul”.

Unlike Trump, voters in MI have a clear choice this election in Hillary Clinton, who has outlined a clear plan to support our veterans – and their families – who have sacrifice so much to protect us. John McCain, R-Arizona, said in a written statement that Trump had “disparaged a fallen soldier’s parents”. For that, he owes the Khan family an apology.

Obama was a state senator in IL in 2004.