“Isn't it time to repudiate Trump, what he has said, what he has threatened to do?" a tearful Khizr Khan said Friday night. Khizr Khan, a day after DNC address, urges Ryan and McConnell to repudiate Trump

Khizr Khan, the father of a fallen Muslim American war hero who powerfully denounced Donald Trump’s rhetoric and policies at the Democratic National Convention, returned to primetime programming Friday night to urge Republican leadership to distance themselves from the GOP nominee.

Delivering what he described as “the other half” of his Thursday address on MSNBC's "The Last Word," Khan –- whose son was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star and Purple Heart for his heroism in Iraq -– tearfully singled out House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a plea to “repudiate” the rhetoric and policies of Trump.


Khan's actions earned him a Trump rebuke Saturday. In an interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Trump said, “I’d like to hear his wife say something.”

(Khizr Khan’s wife, Ghazala, stood silently by her husband’s side during his remarks.)

Praising Ryan and McConnell each as patriots and decent human beings, Khan said it was time to demonstrate leadership by putting aside potential political fallout to follow a “moral imperative.”

“Isn't it time to repudiate Trump, what he has said, what he has threatened to do? This is a moral imperative for both leaders to say to him that enough,” a visibly shaken Khan said. “You are about to sink the ship of the patriot Republicans.”

Noting Ryan and McConnell’s reluctance to fully embrace Trump’s policies –- despite their public endorsements of the Republican nominee –- Khan said the party's leadership needed to take more decisive action in opposing his candidacy.

“They have disagreed with his practices, his threats to minorities, disrespect to the legal system, legal institutions,” he said. “If your candidate wins and he governs the way he has campaigned, my country, this country will have constitutional crisis that never before in the history of this country.”

Despite acknowledging the political hurdles that would be faced by Republican leadership openly challenging their own nominee, Khan said it was time to denounce Trump, for him, Ryan and McConnell alike.

“My conscience compels me under these very difficult circumstances, very raw emotions,” he said. “There is so much at stake and I appeal to both of these leaders, this is the time -- there comes a time in the history of a nation where a stand has to be taken regardless of the political cost.”