Trump calls fallen Muslim soldier a hero, but says father has 'no right' to attack him

Donald Trump suggests the Clinton campaign may have written the searing speech for a Muslim-American father who electrified the Democratic National Convention this week by recalling the death of his Army son in Iraq and charging the GOP presidential nominee has "sacrificed nothing" for his country.

In an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopolous released Saturday, Trump also speculated Khizr Khan's wife, who stood silently beside her husband on the podium, "maybe wasn't allowed to have anything to say."

In his emotional speech Thursday night in Philadelphia, Khan, whose son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, 27, died in a suicide bombing in Baghdad 12 years ago, raised concerns that Trump's proposed ban on Muslims entering the country would have prevented his late son from serving in the military. The Khans, originally from Pakistan, immigrated to the United States in the 1970s.

"Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery?" Khan asked Trump from the podium. "Go look at the graves of the brave patriots who died defending America — you will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one."

Asked on ABC's This Week to respond, Trump appeared to brush aside Khan's comment, saying that the father “was, you know, very emotional and probably looked like a nice guy to me.”

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“Who wrote that?" Trump continued, referring to Khan's six-minute remarks. "Did Hillary's script writers write it? I think I've made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard.”

Pressed by Stephanopoulos to name the sacrifices he’d made for his country, Trump said: “I think I've made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. I've created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I've had tremendous success. I think I've done a lot.”

But Trump had more to say about Khan's remarks. In a statement released Saturday night, Trump called the fallen Muslim soldier a hero who died but said his father, Khizr Khan, has "no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution, (which is false) and say many other inaccurate things."

The real problem, he said, was the rise of radical Islam. He said Hillary Clinton played "a central role in destabilizing the Middle East," through her vote for the invasion of Iraq, her support of withdrawal of troops and the situation in Benghazi.

Trump also said in the ABC interview, “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.”

In a separate interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who also sought reaction on the Khan speech, replied: "I’d like to hear his wife say something."

Ghazala Khan, who appeared with her husband Friday evening on MSNBC's Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, said she declined to speak at the convention because she was afraid of being overcome emotionally in talking about her son.

She also recalled her reaction when Humayun Khan first told her he was shipping off to Iraq: "Don't become (a) hero for me. Just be my son. Come back as a son," she told him. "He came back as a hero."

In a statement Saturday, Clinton said she was "very moved to see Ghazala Khan stand bravely and with dignity in support of her son on Thursday night. And I was very moved to hear her speak last night, bravely and with dignity, about her son's life and the ultimate sacrifice he made for his country."

She added: "This is a time for all Americans to stand with the Khans, and with all the families whose children have died in service to our country. And this is a time to honor the sacrifice of Captain Khan and all the fallen. Captain Khan and his family represent the best of America, and we salute them."

Khizr Khan, a lawyer with an advanced degree from Harvard Law School, told The New York Times that he had no plans to campaign with Clinton nor had he been asked to. He said he was invited to speak at the convention by a campaign official who had read his remarks in an article published by Vocativ in which he criticized Trump's statements on Muslims as un-American.

He told the Times the initial plan was for the Khans to merely attend the convention and he was later asked if he wanted to "say a word or two."

After agreeing, Khan was asked by the campaign whether he needed speechwriting help or any coaching.

“I said: ‘I really don’t, I have my thoughts in my head,' ” he told the Times. “I won’t make it an hourlong speech, just let me say what I want to say. It will be heart-to-heart.”

Nothing in the speech, he told the newspaper, came from the campaign, including his dig at Trump's lack of military service.