Eric Trump defended his father on Tuesday. Eric Trump: Father's Khan remarks 'blown hugely out of proportion'

Donald Trump's comments about the Gold Star family of a fallen U.S. soldier whose father spoke out against him at last week's Democratic National Convention were "blown hugely out of proportion," the Republican nominee's son Eric Trump said Tuesday.

"I think this is something that was honestly blown hugely out of proportion," Eric Trump told "CBS This Morning" after he was asked whether he believed his father to be in the wrong for his comments and repeated attacks on Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the Pakistani-born Muslim parents of slain Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who died in 2004 while protecting his fellow soldiers in Iraq.


Eric Trump continued to defend his father on Tuesday, lamenting that "first of all he said the Khan family looked like amazing people in that interview which for whatever reason never wants to get reported."

"He called him a hero on so many different times," the Trump Organization executive vice president said, remarking that unlike Khizr Khan's suggestion that Trump is targeting Muslims for their faith, "this isn't a Muslim thing."

Trump explained, "This is an ISIS thing. And this is also an anti-immigration, anti-Syrian refugee thing coming into the country. He doesn't want to see more Americans dead. My father’s a great patriot. He sees what's happening around the country and quite frankly, he's shaking his head."

Asked earlier whether it is difficult for his father to apologize, Eric Trump called the Manhattan business mogul a "fighter."

"And I think this country needs is a fighter. And he was attacked the other day. And he was attacked viciously," he continued. "And by the way, that's politics. You're going to get attacked."

As far as whether the elder Trump would apologize to the Khans, Eric Trump suggested that he already has by calling their son a "hero," while defending his father's statement to ABC's George Stephanopoulos that he has also sacrificed for the country.

"Listen, I think that's a great question for him. And I think he has by calling him a hero. You know, in terms of the one question, whether he's made a sacrifice, I think my father has," Eric Trump said. "Now, that's certainly not the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice is a soldier dying for this nation and dying to protect the three of us," he said of the other panelists at the table.