GOP rattled by Trump’s row with Muslim vet’s family

Some Republicans are trying to insulate themselves from the fallout of a feud between Donald Trump and the family of a Muslim U.S. Army veteran. Pakistani immigrants Khizr and Ghazala Khan, parents of an Army captain killed in Iraq in 2004, spoke out last week at the Democratic National Convention against Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims immigrating to the U.S. from countries where terrorists operate.

At the convention, Khizr Khan questioned whether Trump had ever read the Constitution and said, “you have sacrificed nothing.” Trump tweeted this morning that the Khan family “viciously attacked” him, and in an interview with ABC’s This Week, he questioned why Ghazala Khan stood silently by her husband as he spoke at the convention (suggesting her religion required her to keep quiet because she was a woman).

Today, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Trump’s position as party nominee doesn’t give him “unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us.” Without mentioning Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., both issued statements over the weekend denouncing any religious test for immigration and praising the Khans’ son.

“His sacrifice—and that of Khizr and Ghazala Khan—should always be honored. Period,” Ryan said.

Even Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, lauded Capt. Humayun Khan, a Purple Heart and Bronze Star recipient, as a hero and said Sunday his family “should be cherished by every American.”

Trump continued the spat with a Monday morning tweet: “Mr. Khan, who does not know me, viciously attacked me from the stage of the DNC Monday morning and is now all over TV doing the same—Nice!”

The Republican presidential nominee insisted the conversation started by the Khans was taking attention from the larger problem of radical Islamic terrorism.