Khizr Khan featured in new Hillary Clinton ad
Hillary Clinton is out Friday with a new television ad featuring Khizr Khan, a familiar face in the presidential election whose attacks on Donald Trump carry added emotional weight because of Khan’s status as a Gold Star father.
The minute-long spot features Khan in his home with mementos of his late son, Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed while serving in Iraq in 2004. Khizr Khan is shown running his hand across the brim of the cap from his son’s military uniform, looking at his commendations, his photo, and holding the flag that was draped over his son’s coffin.
Khan, a Virginia lawyer, narrates the story of his son’s heroism, how he sacrificed himself to save others in his unit.
“[Humayun] saw a suicide bomber approaching his camp,” Khan says. “My son moved forward to stop the bomber. When the bomb exploded. He saved everyone in his unit. Only one American soldier died.”
“My son was Captain Humayun Khan. He was 27 years old,” he goes on. “And he was a Muslim American.”
Then Khan, tearing up, poses this question: “I want to ask Mr. Trump - would my son have a place in your America?”
You can watch the ad here in full:
Khan first made a splash on the national stage when he spoke out at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia earlier this summer, delivering a blistering indictment of Trump for his contentious rhetoric and his proposals to ban Muslims from entering the United States.
In the weeks following, Trump responded with repeated attacks of his own, even once insinuating that Khan’s wife, who stood with him on the convention stage, was silent because her religion prevented a woman from speaking.
With less than three weeks until the general election, the Clinton campaign is airing the powerful television spot as part of an existing ad buy in the key battleground states of Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania.