Father of American war hero blasts billionaire

Khizr Khan, the father of a decorated American soldier killed in Iraq, lashed out at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday for saying his son would still be alive if Trump had been president at the time.

“For this candidate to put his political expediency ahead of any realization of pain and suffering of the families is shameful,” Khan said in an interview with CNN.
The New York businessman raised the name of US Army Captain Humayun Khan in a Sunday night presidential debate while criticizing Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for voting in favor of the 2003 invasion of Iraq when she was a US senator.
“If I was president at that time he would be alive today,” Trump said. Despite his assertion that he always opposed the war, Trump had expressed support for it in a 2002 interview.
Khizr Khan had delivered a speech to the Democratic National Convention in July showcasing his son’s military service and criticizing Trump’s campaign call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country.
Trump responded at the time by questioning whether Khan’s wife, Ghazala Khan, was not “allowed” to speak when she appeared next to her husband on the stage.
The Khans were stunned to hear Trump bring up the name of their son, who was killed in 2004, in Sunday’s nationally televised debate, the father said.
“We were not only shocked, we were saddened for such disingenuous expression of his thinking and of his feeling,” Khan said.
Trump has said he has modified his call for a ban on Muslims entering the country to a plan for “extreme vetting.”
The White House on Tuesday condemned Donald Trump’s “repugnant” on-mic boast about unsolicited groping of women, saying those actions would constitute sexual assault.
“The president found the tape as repugnant as most Americans did,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest, adding that most people would consider the actions described by Trump as “sexual assault.”
Trump has apologized for the comments, saying they represented “locker-room” banter, rather than his actual actions.
Meanwhile, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he still supports Trump though he describes his crude comments as “completely indefensible.”
A top Trump ally, Christie for the first time publicly addressed Trump’s comments Tuesday during an interview on New York sports radio station WFAN.
Christie said he made it clear to Trump on Friday that this kind of talk, even in private, is unacceptable. 
He said the candidate had to be contrite and apologetic.
He says he would have apologized differently, but he believes Trump is sorry and embarrassed.

Source: Arab News