I’m a little late to the game on this but I wanted to get out all the ways I think that Trump’s attack on specifically Ghazala Khan, Captain Khan’s mother, was colossally stupid. There are layers to the stupidity, Trump’s statements are like a parfait of stupidity.
Let’s go to the transcript of Trump’s July 31, 2016 ABC This Week Interview
STEPHANOPOULOS: I don't know if you saw the speech, but there's man named Khizr Khan, speaking at the Democratic convention last night. His son, Captain Humayun Khan, was killed serving in Iraq, and he had some very tough questions for you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KHIZR KHAN, CAPT. HUMAYUN KHAN'S FATHER: Have you read the United States constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy. You have sacrificed nothing and no one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: He said you wouldn't have let his son in America.
TRUMP: He doesn't know -- he doesn't know that.
I saw him. He was, you know, very emotional. And probably looked like -- a nice guy to me. His wife, if you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably -- maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me, but plenty of people have written that.
She was extremely quiet and looked like she had nothing to say. A lot of people have said that.
And personally, I watched him. I wish him the best of luck, George.
Also just to make sure we knew that it wasn’t just a brain fart on his part, in an interview with Maureen Dowd, Trump said "I'd like to hear his wife say something,"
Okay, let’s break down the stupidity
1. It’s a complete red herring. The marital dynamic between Mr. and Mrs. Khan, whatever it is, has nothing to do with anything. The topics raised by Khizr Khan were Trump’s disrespect of Muslims, his lack of sacrifice, and his seeming indifference to the equal protection laws of the Constitution. Whether or not Mrs. Khan had ‘nothing to say’ is completely irrelevant. It’d be the equivalent of Hillary responding to an attack on the constitutionality of any executive orders she may do on immigration, with “I’ve heard that Melania gets a $20 a week allowance.” Huh? What does that have to do with anything. The only reason to bring it up, is to raise the specter of Sharia, which, dude, not the time. Not with a gold star family whose son was blown up by a suicide bomber.
2. What was it exactly that Trump thought she was going to say? The most obvious response to Trump’s comments would be for some enterprising reporter to take it upon himself to find out “well what exactly does Ghazala Khan have to say?”. How could he not have seen that coming and how could he not have assumed that her feelings would more or less mirror her husbands? Is his ego so out-of-control that he figured Ghazala would say “Eh… my husband’s speech was a little over the top. Make America great again!” Or did Trump just not think it through that far? Or did he think she legitimately isn’t allowed to talk in public? Trump shone a spotlight on her and handed her a megaphone. And it turns out, she’s not a fan.
3. The lack of a need to have any factual basis to his insinuation. How many times have we seen a couple giving a speech where only one person does all the talking? How many times has the response to that been, “I wonder if [the silent partner] is allowed to talk”? You would think before making an allegation that wild, you’d have something substantial to support it. I actually don’t doubt that Trump read somewhere that maybe Ghazala wasn’t allowed to speak (which should tell you all you need to know about where the Republican candidate for president is getting his news) but if Trump had stopped to think for just a couple seconds, it should have occurred to him how dumb those suggestions were. The Khans are from Pakistan, which had a woman president back in 1988. Hell, without knowing any history, Malala Yousafzai is from Pakistan and has been all over the world and on tv speaking her mind. I’m not trying to suggest that there aren’t women from Pakistan that don’t enjoy the freedom to speak their minds, just that if you are going to insinuate such, you need more to go on than that she stood quietly next to her husband during his speech.
4. The complete and utter lack of self-control that Trump once again demonstrated that he possesses. One of the few memorable lines from Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech was that Trump doesn’t have the temperament to be president, “Someone that you can bait with a tweet, should not have access to the nuclear codes.” To spend the next 4 days reinforcing that idea is utterly idiotic. To reveal that you are incapable of letting a perceived slight pass and to drag perhaps the most sympathetic figure in America, a mother who lost her child at war, a woman who literally hadn’t said a word against you, into your strike back could not have made Hillary’s point any better. And he’s befuddled over what he’s done wrong.
It’s the how, Donald. The concept of “letting it slide” is completely alien to him.
5. The political malfeasance. As powerful as Khizr Khan’s DNC speech was, the media always moves on to the next story (or non-story). The speech wasn’t made in prime time on Thursday. By the end of Friday, it would have largely cycled out of the news. For Donald Trump to keep this story in the headlines for another 3, 4, 5 days is just moronic. Instead of the speech just being the story, now the story is the speech, Trump’s response to the speech, the Khan’s response to Trump’s response, Trump’s response to the Khan’s response, elected Republicans’ response to Trump’s response, Trump’s response to the Republicans’ response, not to mention all the people who may bring this up on the campaign trail and Trump supporters’ response to those people, etc., etc. All while Hillary sits back and laughs. All this at a time when Trump finds himself needing to make up ground after getting a negative bounce coming out of his convention, his four day commercial. This story, a public back and forth with a gold star family, with republicans of all stripes condemning his remarks (though not taking back their endorsements), a completely self inflicted wound was the last thing he needed.
(I didn’t mention how morally repugnant his response was but that part’s fairly obvious).
