Gold Star Families Demand An Apology From Trump

Hero Humayun Khan, whose parents are being attacked by Donald Trump

A subsequent post will look into growing concerns in some circles about Donald Trump's mental stability, but putting aside clinical diagnosis, one would argue that no one in their right mind would attack and insult gold star parents/families while running for political office here in America.  Yet, as prior posts have noted, that is precisely what Donald Trump has done - and continues to do.  As a result, VoteVets.org released an open letter written by the families of 17 service-members who were killed while on active duty, calling Trump’s comments about the Khan family “repugnant…offensive, and frankly anti-American.”  Adding to the insults is that few Republicans have withdrawn their support for Trump - e.g., Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, etc.  Think Progress looks at the growing firestorm.  Here are excerpts: 

Over the weekend, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his campaign surrogates gave several interviews in which they continued to attack the family of fallen Iraq War veteran Humayun Khan and defend Trump’s comments suggesting that Ghazala Khan wasn’t permitted to speak because she’s Muslim. 

In their letter, other Gold Star family members rejected Trump’s definition of sacrifice.

“Ours is a sacrifice you will never know. Ours is a sacrifice we would never want you to know,” the letter states. “When you say your job building buildings is akin to our sacrifice, you are attacking our sacrifice.”

Trump’s comments have drawn swift repudiations from every shade of the political spectrum. Former Republican presidential candidate and Ohio Governor John Kasich (R) offered his support for Khan over the weekend, as did Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO), a former marine. “Having served in Iraq, I’m deeply offended when Donald Trump fails to honor the sacrifices of all our brave soldiers who were lost in that war,” he said.

Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters, including Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, continued their contortion act of trying to distance themselves from Trump’s extreme rhetoric while still failing to rescind their endorsements of him.

For Trump, his comments are just the latest provocation of military veterans and their families. Last year, he responded to criticism from John McCain by suggesting that the Republican senator wasn’t a war hero because he had been shot down, detained, and tortured during the Vietnam War. “I like people who weren’t captured,” he said at the time, earning near universal condemnation. Then as now, Trump refused to apologize.