Donald Trump goes on the offensive against everyone
DAYTONA BEACH, FL - Donald Trump's day in a nutshell: At a rally in Virginia, Trump accepted the gift of a Purple Heart, an honor given to service members who are killed or wounded, from a retired veteran and said, "I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier." At the same speech, Trump ordered that a crying baby be escorted out of the room - and it was unclear whether he was kidding.
Then, Trump left the rally to have lunch with a Washington Post reporter, where he informed the reporter that he wasn't endorsing House Speaker Paul Ryan in his primary campaign ("I'm not quite there yet," he explained) or Sen. John McCain in his. Both Ryan and McCain have endorsed Trump for president.
In that same conversation, Trump decried recent rulings about voter ID laws that have faced defeats in federal courts, saying "We may have people vote 10 times... If you don't have voter ID, you can just keep voting and voting and voting."
If you're wondering, we're still in the nutshell, and the check hadn't come for lunch yet.
Trump did an interview in the afternoon with WJLA's Scott Thuman, where his verbal barrage continued. Even as denunciations rapidly piled up against the Republican nominee, Trump showed no remorse about his handling of Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of a fallen Iraq War veteran, with whom he has openly feuded for the last week.
"I don't regret anything," Trump told Thuman. "I said nice things about the son and I feel that very strongly, but of course I was hit very hard from the stage and you know, it's just one of those things. But no, I don't regret anything.
There was no apology coming for the Khan family, in spite of Trump's son, Eric Trump, claiming on "CBS This Morning" that his father had, indeed, apologized by calling the Khans' son, Humayun Khan, a hero.
A day after calling his Democratic opponent in the general election "the devil" in Pennsylvania, Trump was asked whether his name calling ever goes too far.
"No, I don't think so," Trump said. "I think it is what it is. She's a very deceitful person. She lies. She cheats. No, I don't think that's too far at all."
He also returned to voter ID laws and hinting at the possibility of a rigged election in November, which quickly turned into his cause célèbre for the day. Thuman asked if Trump had a reason to believe that something illegal was taking place to deprive him of an election win. "Well, I just hear things," Trump replied. "And I just feel it and I felt it having to do with the primaries."
Then came dinner - this time, presumably, without a reporter or a crying baby in the room. After that, an interview aired on Fox News with anchor Bill O'Reilly, where Trump, somehow, managed to ratchet up his rhetoric on the Khan family.
During the interview, Trump said four times that he was "viciously attacked" by Khizr Khan, and said that the controversy and backlash that erupted was purely media generated.
"I speak very well, obviously," Trump told O'Reilly. "I mean, there is no greater sacrifice than you lose a son or a daughter and, you know, in the way that this happened, and I understand that. But regardless, I was viciously attacked."
But then O'Reilly referenced Ghazala Khan, who had stood silently beside her husband on stage at the Democratic National Convention. Trump had previously set off a fresh round of outrage when he suggested that she was silent because her Muslim faith didn't allow her to speak. Khan has since said that she was silent because she was overcome by grief. Trump did not, however, shy away from his own explanation.
"I read a lot and I watch a lot," Trump said. "And many, many people discuss this. Many, many people - they said it. So, when I said it, it became like a big deal. And that's, you know, the way it is." He then followed up that statement to say, once again, that he had been "viciously attacked."
Then came more McCain bashing - "I just hate the way our veterans have been treated by John and other people" - and saying he hadn't made a decision on whether to support McCain's reelection bid. McCain is one of the United States' most famous veterans, and Trump made headlines last year when he mocked the Arizona Republican for getting shot down and captured by enemy forces during the Vietnam War.
Finally, Trump returned to voter ID laws - and claimed 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, whom Trump has said "choked like a dog" in that election, might have been the victim of fraud himself.
"I must say, four years ago, I was hearing a lot of bad things having to do with the Romney campaign where, you know, when the vote came out, there were some districts who were really shockingly different from what they were anticipated to be," Trump said, without providing any further evidence to back up that claim.
With that, the Republican nominee ended his day.