Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has attracted outrage by mocking a dead US Muslim soldier’s mother.
Khizr Khan — whose son died in Iraq — accused the Republican presidential nominee of vilifying US Muslims in a steely rebuke that electrified the Democratic convention on Thursday.
Humayun Khan was killed by a car bomb in 2004 in Iraq at the age of 27.
“Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America,” Khizr Khan said to Trump.
“You will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”
Trump also questioned whether his rival, Hillary Clinton, had been behind Khan’s address, which the father said he wrote with his wife Ghazala.
“Who wrote that? Did Hillary’s script writers write it?” Trump said in the interview, which is set to air in full on Sunday.
“If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say,” Trump said, adding that “maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say.”
Clinton released a statement Saturday defending the Khans as “the best of America”.
“I was very moved to see Ghazala Khan stand bravely and with dignity in support of her son on Thursday night,” Clinton said.
“This is a time to honour the sacrifice of Captain Khan and all the fallen. Captain Khan and his family represent the best of America, and we salute them.”
Republicans and Democrats said the Republican candidate’s comments were no way to talk of a hero’s mother. Mrs Khan said she was upset by his remarks.
Former president Bill Clinton, the husband of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, said: “I cannot conceive how he can say that about a Gold Star mother.”
Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine said Mr Trump’s remarks were inappropriate.
“He was kind of trying to turn that into some kind of ridicule,” he said, quoted by AP. “It just demonstrates again kind of a temperamental unfitness. If you don’t have any more sense of empathy than that, then I’m not sure you can learn it.”
Some Republicans also rounded on their candidate.
Ohio Governor John Kasich, a former rival to Mr Trump for the Republican nomination, tweeted: “There’s only one way to talk about Gold Star parents: with honour and respect.”
In an interview for ABC on Saturday, Ghazala Khan said: “When I was standing there, all of America felt my pain, without a single word. I don’t know how he missed that.”
“Please Mr Trump, feel that pain and you will be better.”
“I was upset when I heard that I didn’t say anything because I was in pain.”
Khizr Khan said that Mr Trump was “devoid of feeling the pain of a mother who has sacrificed her son”.
“Running for president is not an entitlement to disrespect… a Gold Star mother, shame on him,” he said.
“He has no decency, he has a dark heart.”
Ghazala Khan said on Friday that she did not speak during her husband’s speech because she was still overcome with grief and could not look at her son’s photos without crying.
Mr Trump’s campaign issued a statement on Saturday in which he praised Mr Khan’s son Humayun.
“Captain Humayun Khan was a hero to our country and we should honour all who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country safe,” he said.
“The real problem here are the radical Islamic terrorists who killed him, and the efforts of these radicals to enter our country to do us further harm.”
In the ABC interview to be broadcast on Sunday, a transcript of which was released by the Trump campaign, Mr Trump was asked what sacrifices he had made.
“I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures,” he said. “…I’ve had tremendous success. I think I’ve done a lot.”
The remarks prompted ridicule on Twitter under the hashtag #TrumpSacrifices, with users listing such hardships as flying commercial class and playing on a municipal golf course.
