Eric Trump said Tuesday that his father was attacked "viciously" by Gold Star father Khizr Khan during the Democratic National Convention, and that his comments about Khan and his wife, Ghazala, have been "honestly blown hugely out of proportion."
"First of all, he said the Khan family looked like amazing people in that interview, which for whatever reason never wants to get reported," Trump told the "CBS This Morning" program. "He called him a hero so many times."
Trump also rejected a claim by Khan that his father is targeting Muslims for their religious beliefs, telling the morning program that "this isn't a Muslim thing. This is an ISIS thing."
"This is also an anti-immigration, anti-Syrian refugee thing coming into the country," Trump said about the GOP nominee's stance. "He doesn't want to see more Americans dead. My father's a great patriot. He sees what's happening around the country and quite frankly, he's shaking his head."
Trump said that he believes his father has already apologized to the Khans by calling their son a hero, and he praised his father as a "fighter."
"This country needs is a fighter," he told the program. "He was attacked the other day, and he was attacked viciously," he continued. "And by the way, that's politics. You're going to get attacked."
He also agreed with his father's contention that he has made sacrifices, but it was "certainly not the ultimate sacrifice. The ultimate sacrifice is a soldier dying for this nation."
Trump also asked about why Pat Smith, the mother of Information Officer Sean Smith, one of the four victims in the Benghazi, Libya attacks, has not received as much attention as the Khans for her own appearance at the Republican National Convention.
"Between all the news networks, she got 77 seconds of airtime," he said. "The Kahn family has gotten hours and hours of airtime and what's ironic about that was Hillary was the one that left them on the roof in Benghazi. It was Hillary's policy that crippled Libya and Syria and Iraq."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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