Donald Trump is furious at the Muslim father of an American soldier who died in Iraq
Trump took on the news network after their news anchor Brian Steltor did a strong interview of one of the Trump campaign's spokespersons.
Over the last fortnight, the Republican and Democratic National Conventions were held back-to-back. Most of the convention were standard fare, using the spin associated with these kinds of events to drum up support for their parties. Trump's speech terrified users on social media while Michelle Obama's speech made them cry.
Khizr Khan, a Muslim-American who moved to the United States from the United Arab Eemirates, spoke about the his son, a US solider who died in Iraq in 2004, and angrily asked Trump if he had ever read a copy of the Constitution before promising to ban Muslims from entering America.
The speech, because it hit all the right notes of patriotism and nationalism, the issues that 2016 US elections is shaping to be about, went viral following the event. Even John Oliver, host of Last Week Tonight, devoted a part of his segment to the speech calling Khan pulling out the Constitution and waving it at the camera as "that is an American founding document being inspirationally used as a middle finger".
In the aftermath of these conventions, the Clinton campaign took a nine-point lead, leading 52 per cent to the Trump's campaign's 42 per cent.
The only comment, he made to The New York Times, about Khan's speech was, "I'd like to hear his wife speak," which many have seen as a snide comment about Muslims and their treatment of women.
In the video below, he spoke to ABC News and clarified his response. According to him, she didn't speak because they are Muslim and that Khan hadn't made any sacrifices at least not as many as Trump who made many by employing "thousands and thousands of people".
In another interview, his communications officer was grilled by an officer by a CNN anchor on Trump's criticism of Khan but had nothing to say but pointed to the number of people at the Republican National Convention who had spoke about being killed by "illegal aliens" but hadn't been covered by the news media. More than anything, this statement could be used to question the entire practice of having families who have had tragedy occur being used as pawns by presidential campaigns, especially when their stories are used without context.
His statement also caused many in the Republican Party to condemn him. Trump, who is known not to have any restraint on Twitter, used it as a last resort and blamed the media, after all else failed.
CNN's response was to call these attacks by Trump Khan and his wife as the "worst 72 hours in any presidential campaign in recent memory".