Khizr Khan, a Muslim-American whose son was killed in Iraq, on Wednesday accused Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump of peddling hate and said that the “future of the earth” is at stake in the Nov. 8 election.
“There comes a time in an ordinary citizen’s life where you have to gather all the courage you have and you stand up and speak against tyranny and speak against un-American hate,” Khan said in a reference to Trump’s stance on immigration, which calls for “extreme” vetting for would-be immigrants from regions plagued by extremism.
“This hate is un-American,” Khan said at the Masjid William Salaam mosque in Norfolk, Virginia.
Photo: AFP
Trump responded by telling ABC News that Khan’s son, who died in Iraq trying to protect his unit from a suicide bomber, would still be alive had Trump been in charge in 2004 instead of then-US president George W. Bush.
“I wouldn’t have been in Iraq. Had I been president, Captain Khan would be alive today,” Trump said.
“This is the most cruel thing you can say to grieving parents,” Khizr Khan said.
Khizr Khan first gained national attention from the podium of the Democratic National Convention when he paid homage to his son, US Army Captain Humayun Khan, who died in Iraq in 2004. Khan held up a pocket-sized copy of the US constitution and said Trump has sacrificed “nothing.”
The elder Khan’s Norfolk visit came after a new advertisement from the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton that features him tearfully discussing his son’s death.
The campaign last week said that it would air the ad in seven battleground states.
Trump won most of the southeastern cities and counties along the James River in Virginia’s March 1 Republican primary and a survey of the nation’s service members conducted last month by the Military Times and Syracuse University showed Trump slightly leading Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, 37.6 percent to 36.5 percent. Clinton had 16.3 percent of their support.
Trina Phillips, chair of Military Spouses for Trump, told reporters in a telephone interview that her candidate has widespread support.
“I think the Khans have come out and used their Muslim background as a weapon to make him seem more prejudiced against them,” said Phillips, 46, who lives in nearby Newport News with her husband, an air traffic controller in the US Air Force.
“They’re also using the death of their child as a weapon,” she said. “And that’s not very fair.”
Khayriyyah Azeez, 63, a retired nurse from Norfolk, said she sees support for Clinton.
Her son, Kasib Azeez, is a US Navy sailor who prayed with Khizr Khan at the mosque after Wednesday’s speech.
“It’s easy to fall for some of the stuff Trump says, but when I speak to my son, most of the young people [in the military] are voting for Hillary,” Azeez said.
After his speech, Khizr Khan told reporters that the mosque was an appropriate place to stump for Clinton.
“Somehow it has gotten into our minds that places of worship should not be included in your political conversation. Not at all,” he said. “This election is a crossroad election for the future of this country.”
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