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  Trump Ignites New Controversy Over Claim that Job Creation is Comparable to
                                Soldier's Death

   by Ken Bredemeier

   U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was engulfed in
   controversy Sunday after he equated his creation of thousands of jobs
   as a "sacrifice" comparable to the death of a Muslim-American soldier
   who was killed fighting in Iraq.

   Khizr Khan, the father of Army Captain Humayun Khan, told CNN that
   Trump is "totally unfit for the leadership of this country."

   Khan, a Pakistani immigrant, said in an emotional speech at last week's
   Democratic National Convention that his family would never have been
   allowed to immigrate to the U.S. under Trump's immigration policies.
   Khan said that Trump during his life has "sacrificed nothing and no
   one."

   ''

   Trump, in an interview that aired Sunday on ABC News, said, "I think
   I've made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard," creating
   "thousands and thousands of jobs. I think those are sacrifices, I think
   when I can employ thousands and thousands of people, take care of their
   education, take care of so many things."

   The Republican contender questioned why Khan's wife, Ghazala, stood by
   her husband while he spoke at the convention and said nothing,
   suggesting that as a Muslim woman "maybe she wasn't allowed to have
   anything to say."

   A mother's reaction

   Ghazala Khan said in an opinion article in The Washington Post that
   "walking onto the convention stage, with a huge picture of my son
   behind me, I could hardly control myself. What mother could?" She said
   her husband asked her if she wanted to speak, "but I told him I could
   not."

   "Donald Trump said he made a lot of sacrifices," she concluded. "He
   doesn't know what the word means."

   Trump's opponent in the November national election, former U.S.
   secretary of state Hillary Clinton, told a rally Saturday in the
   midwestern state of Ohio, that Trump "attacked the distinguished father
   of a soldier who had sacrificed himself for his unit, Captain Khan."
   Earlier, she said that she "was very moved to see Ghazala Khan stand
   bravely and with dignity in support of her son" on the convention
   stage.

   ''
   Paul Rieckoff, the founder of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of
   America, said that for Trump to compare his "sacrifice" of creating
   jobs to someone who had lost a son in the Iraq fighting "is insulting,
   foolish and ignorant."

   With the criticism of his comments, Trump, a real estate mogul seeking
   elected office for the first time, took a new tack in comments he
   posted on Twitter.

   "Captain Khan, killed 12 years ago, was a hero, but this is about
   Radical Islamic Terror and the weakness of our 'leaders' to eradicate
   it," he said in one tweet.

   In another comment, Trump said, "I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan
   at the Democratic convention. Am I not allowed to respond? Hillary
   voted for the Iraq war, not me!"

   As a U.S. senator, Clinton voted along with other lawmakers in
   approving the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq that toppled Iraqi dictator
   Saddam Hussein. The invasion led to an eight-year war that many
   Americans came to oppose, including Clinton. The premise for the U.S.
   invasion, that Saddam Hussein had amassed weapons of mass destruction,
   turned out to be unfounded.

   Battleground states

   Trump plans to campaign in the industrial states of Ohio and
   Pennsylvania Monday -- key election battleground states Clinton is
   currently touring.

   Speaking at a wire manufacturing plant in Johnstown, Pennsylvania
   Saturday, Clinton said she was not there to insult her opponent and
   make "crazy promises," but to tell voters of plans to "make the biggest
   investment in new, good-paying jobs" since World War II.

   Clinton proposed what she calls an infrastructure bank to pay for
   projects, such as road building and new bridges, instead of having to
   go to Congress for the money every time.

   She said the country cannot go back to what she says were failed
   economic policies of the past such as tax cuts for the wealthy. She
   said the rich have to pay their fair share and "support America."

   Ohio and Pennsylvania are likely to be key states in the November
   election. While most recent polls show Clinton narrowly leading in both
   states, blue collar voters could swing either state to Clinton or
   Trump.

   Much of Trump's success this year has been appealing to working class
   voters who worry that the U.S. is losing jobs to overseas competitors
   with cheaper labor.

   Trump took to Twitter to say the turnout was "small and unenthusiastic"
   at Clinton's Johnstown event, and suggested it might be due to the fact
   that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, supported the North
   American Free Trade Agreement, a pact with Mexico and Canada that Trump
   claims sent U.S. jobs to Mexico.

   Trump and Clinton are locked in a tight contest ahead of the November 8
   election to pick the successor to President Barack Obama when he leaves
   office next January.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/trump-ignites-new-controversy-soldier
   -death/3443027.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/trump-ignites-new-controversy-soldier-death/3443027.html