RNC chief rebukes Trump: Khans ‘should be off limits’

The Khan family is off limits, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Monday, hours after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump accused the Gold Star father of “viciously” attacking him.

Trump has continued to go after Khizr Khan and his wife since he challenged Trump’s knowledge of the Constitution and declared on the Democratic National Convention stage last week that while his son gave his life to save his troops when he died in Iraq in 2004, the real estate mogul has “sacrificed nothing, and no one.”


Speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Priebus said the family was off limits but suggested Trump was right to defend himself. The Republican Party, he said, believes that Gold Star families are “precious” families who are to “be honored and loved and cherished.”

“And so, yeah, I mean, I think this family should be off limits, and we love them and I can't imagine being the father of a little girl and boy going through the unbelievable grief of them not coming home one day in battle,” he said.

Priebus added that nothing is “more sacrificial than that, and we believe that and we know that and I believe that Donald Trump and Mike Pence also know and understand that.” He maintained that there is “nothing but honor and respect” for the Khan family and all Gold Star families “that go through these horrific things in their life.”

“It’s an unbelievable place to come from and that’s why I think that we just — we don't go there and I don't go there,” Priebus said.

But Trump did. The billionaire businessman has continued to defend himself from the Khan family’s attacks, even as he acknowledges that their son Humayun Khan is a hero. And he has yet to apologize.

“Donald Trump is gonna speak for Donald Trump. I mean, he wants to defend himself and it’s understandable,” Priebus said. “But look, like I said before, this is a family that is grieving and they have a right to and we have an obligation to honor them and to love them and to cherish them and that's where I'm — that's where I come from. That's where our party’s coming from.”

Asked whether Trump should apologize to the family, Priebus demurred, insisting that as the RNC chair he speaks for the GOP and Trump speaks for himself.

“It’s up to Donald Trump,” he said. “You know, I love these families. Our party loves these families. And like I said before, they’re heroes, they’re cherished and, I mean, everything you can imagine. I mean, it’s just an unbelievable burden to carry and, you know, whatever sacrifices that I think I've made or whatever sacrifices you think you've made, Wolf, I mean, there are crumbs on the floor compared to these families.”