Democratic
leaders and candidates for Congress began over the weekend to call on
Republicans to disavow Mr. Trump. And the top two Republicans in
Congress, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Senator Mitch McConnell, the
majority leader, signaled their strong disagreement with Mr. Trump, but
stopped short of condemning him in blunt terms.
Hillary
Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, sternly reprimanded Mr.
Trump on Sunday morning, saying at a church in Cleveland that he had
answered the Khan family’s sacrifice with disrespect for them and for
American traditions of religious tolerance.
“Mr.
Khan paid the ultimate sacrifice in his family, didn’t he?” Mrs.
Clinton said. “And what has he heard from Donald Trump? Nothing but
insults, degrading comments about Muslims, a total misunderstanding of
what made our country great.”
Mrs.
Clinton chastised Mr. Trump again on Sunday in Ashland, Ohio, calling
his comments part of a disturbing pattern. “He called Mexicans rapists
and criminals,” Mrs. Clinton said. “He said a federal judge was
unqualified because he had Mexican heritage — someone born in the
neighboring state of Indiana. He’s called women pigs. He’s mocked a
reporter with a disability.”
Mr.
and Ms. Khan stiffened their denunciation of Mr. Trump on Sunday,
saying that he lacked the moral character and empathy to be president.
Mr. Khan, who addressed the Democratic National Convention on Thursday,
said on “Meet the Press” on NBC that Mr. Trump had shown disrespect to
his wife, and he accused Mr. Trump of running a campaign “of hatred, of
derision, of dividing us.”
In a direct appeal to voters inclined to support Mr. Trump, Mr. Khan pleaded with them to reject his brand of politics.
Addressing
“patriotic Americans that would probably vote for Donald Trump,” Mr.
Khan said, “I appeal to them not to vote for hatred, not to vote for
fear-mongering. Vote for unity. Vote for the goodness of this country.”
And Ms. Khan, in an opinion article published in The Washington Post, rebuked Mr. Trump for suggesting earlier in the weekend
that she had not been permitted to speak at the Democratic convention.
Ms. Khan said she did not speak because she did not believe she could
remain composed while talking about her son.
“All
the world, all America, felt my pain. I am a Gold Star mother. Whoever
saw me felt me in their heart,” Ms. Khan wrote, using the term for
surviving family members of those killed in war. “Donald Trump has
children whom he loves. Does he really need to wonder why I did not
speak?”
Ms.
Khan said Mr. Trump was “ignorant” of Islam and criticized him for
offering his business career as evidence that he had sacrificed for his
country. “Donald Trump said he has made a lot of sacrifices,” Ms. Khan
said. “He doesn’t know what the word sacrifice means.”
It
is too soon to say how severe the damage to Mr. Trump might be, but the
clash has already entangled him in a self-destructive, dayslong
argument with sympathetic accusers who are portraying him as a person of
unredeemable callousness. Still, he has proved remarkably resilient,
getting past controversies that might have sunk other candidates.
Several
prominent Republicans have condemned Mr. Trump’s treatment of the
Khans, calling his behavior outside the bounds of political discourse.
But Republican congressional leaders responded cautiously to Mr. Trump.
Mr. Ryan and Mr. McConnell released statements stressing their
admiration for the Khan family; Mr. McConnell called Capt. Humayun Khan
an “American hero.” And both said they firmly opposed banning Muslim
immigration, though neither mentioned Mr. Trump, whom they have
endorsed, by name.
“Many
Muslim Americans have served valiantly in our military, and made the
ultimate sacrifice. Captain Khan was one such brave example,” Mr. Ryan
said. “His sacrifice — and that of Khizr and Ghazala Khan — should
always be honored. Period.”
Mr.
Trump’s clash with the Khan family threatens to unwind any progress he
may have made at moderating his campaign and rallying his party at the
outset of the general election. He has sought to play down his proposal
for banning Muslim immigration, focusing on blocking immigration from
specific countries instead, but has never disavowed the idea of a
religious test. And he has not apologized to the Khans for his comments
about Ms. Khan.
Those
comments have deeply unsettled many leading Republicans. Jeb Bush, the
former governor of Florida, and John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, have
forcefully expressed disapproval. A spokesman for former President
George W. Bush declined to comment directly on Mr. Trump’s behavior, but
suggested Mr. Bush takes a different view.
“President
Bush remains deeply grateful for the sacrifice of all Gold Star
families, as we all should be. He thinks about them and prays for them
each and every day,” said the spokesman, Freddy Ford.
Other
Republicans went even further in chiding Mr. Trump. Senator Kelly
Ayotte of New Hampshire, who is seeking re-election, said the Khans
deserved the utmost respect: “I am appalled that Donald Trump would
disparage them and that he had the gall to compare his own sacrifices to
those of a Gold Star family.”
Senator
Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on Sunday that Mr.
Trump had crossed another inviolable line. Like his comments about Judge
Curiel, Mr. Graham said, Mr. Trump’s jabs at Mr. and Ms. Khan were
unacceptable. “This is going to a place where we’ve never gone before,
to push back against the families of the fallen,” he said
He added, “The problem is, ‘unacceptable’ doesn’t even begin to describe it.”
Representative
Mike Coffman of Colorado, a Republican who served in combat as a Marine
and now represents a crucial swing district in the Denver suburbs, said
Mr. Trump had disrespected American troops. “Having served in Iraq, I’m
deeply offended when Donald Trump fails to honor the sacrifices of all
of our brave soldiers who were lost in that war,” Mr. Coffman said.
The pressure on Mr. Trump and other Republicans is unlikely to relent soon. But so far he has flailed and faltered in response.
He
first criticized Ms. Khan for not speaking alongside her husband,
implying that she had been prohibited from doing so. Facing mounting
criticism from Democrats and Republicans, he released a follow-up
statement on Saturday night, describing the Khans’ deceased son as a
hero, but insisting that Mr. Khan had “no right” to criticize him the
way he did in Philadelphia. He made a third attempt to deflect the
Khans’ criticism on Sunday, writing on Twitter that the real issue at stake in the election was terrorism.
The
Republican vice-presidential nominee, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana,
appears to be in a particularly awkward position in the uproar. His son
is a Marine, a fact he mentions frequently. Mr. Pence’s ability to
navigate a racially charged argument between Mr. Trump and a Gold Star
family is emerging as his first difficult test as Mr. Trump’s running
mate.
For
most of the weekend, Mr. Pence was silent. His aides referred inquiries
to Mr. Trump’s staff, and his lone public comment was a Twitter post about getting his hair cut in Indianapolis.
Late
Sunday, Mr. Pence issued a statement sidestepping Mr. Trump’s criticism
of the Khans. He expressed appreciation for the family’s sacrifice and
reiterated his support for blocking immigration “from countries that
have been compromised by terrorism.”
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