The backlash against Donald Trump escalated on Thursday as angry US military veterans arrived on Capitol Hill urging Republican leaders to withdraw their support for the party’s nominee.

The protest came after a torrid week for the maverick candidate, whose criticism of Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of an American Muslim soldier killed in Iraq in 2004, triggered a Republican revolt.



The veterans presented a petition on Thursday to the office of Senator John McCain , a Vietnam war veteran and former prisoner of war who was the Republican presidential nominee in 2008. McCain joined the condemnation of Trump this week, but stopped short of withdrawing his endorsement of him.

“Donald Trump and his surrogates have demonstrated that their bigotry and hate speech know no bounds,” Nate Terani, the first Muslim American to serve in the US Navy Presidential Honor Guard, told reporters. “Donald Trump is a racist and bigot and wholly unfit for this position.”

Terani and other veterans gathered under trees on a lawn outside the US Capitol building, urged McCain to put country before party and “unendorse” the nominee. They said their petition had more than 100,000 names in less than a day, including veterans, their families and ordinary voters.

Alexander McCoy, a former sergeant in the marines, said: “Donald Trump’s reckless ignorance about America’s responsibility to the world shocks me to the core ... I am done listening. I have heard enough. Senator McCain, you served and you sacrificed in ways Trump cannot begin to understand. You have heard enough too.”

Jim Lyons, a former nuclear machinist mate 2nd class in the navy, added: “He sows hate, fear and division ... His bigoted and racist and divisive remarks are not taken lightly by those on the receiving end of them ... From one veteran to another, Senator McCain, please be brave and courageous as you have in the past and please rescind your endorsement of Donald Trump.”

And Crystal Cravens, an ex-army sergeant, said: “When Trump attacks the Khan family, he attacks all military families who have lived experiences that Trump will never know. Trump’s message seeks to divide our country, and a nation divided against itself cannot stand.

“Do not be afraid to condemn this man; he does not represent what this country stands for. Senator McCain, please stand with your fellow veterans, good men and women who sacrificed themselves for this country.”

The petition on MoveOn.org was started by Perry O’Brien, who served as a medic in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne Division and was discharged as a conscientious objector in 2004. “Every vet I know is absolutely outraged,” he said on Wednesday. “Trump is someone who clearly does not share core American values and the values that we in the military hold dear: respect, sacrifice, selflessness.

“When he said he’s always wanted a Purple Heart, it showed he doesn’t know what a Purple Heart is. It’s like saying: ‘I want to be shot in the face’ or ‘I want to be blown up’. He doesn’t have a certain awareness that there are some things you don’t do or don’t say in this country. Even George W Bush knew not to personally slander a gold star mother.”

Trump received five deferments – four for university, one for medical reasons (heel spurs) – from the military draft for the Vietnam war. O’Brien, an organiser of the #VetsvHate campaign and Common Defense political action committee, added: “I’ve heard a lot of Vietnam veterans joke: ‘Thank God he got a deferment and I didn’t have Donald Trump at my back.’”

Asked about the prospect of Trump as commander-in-chief, O’Brien remarked: “His recklessness, his instinct towards authoritarianism, his unhealthy attraction towards dictators – all these things raise questions. Why would a soldier go to fight knowing that, if they’re killed, President Donald Trump would slander their family? Who would enlist knowing he would attack their mother if she disagrees with him?”

During rallies, Trump has repeatedly stressed his support for the military and pledged to improve conditions for veterans. A Fox News poll, based on interviews with 1,022 randomly chosen registered voters from 31 July to 2 August, found him still leading Hillary Clinton among veterans by 53%-39%. But the survey also found that 77% of voters are familiar with the exchange between Trump and the Khans, and 69% describe his attacks on the family as “out of bounds”.

The Khans appeared at the Democratic convention last week. Brandishing a copy of the US constitution, Khizr Khan criticised Trump’s plan to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country and said Trump has “sacrificed nothing and no one”. Trump hit back by denigrating the Khans on Twitter and in television appearances, including suggesting that Ghazala Khan did not speak on stage because “maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say”.

His attitude towards the Khans – known as “gold star” parents because of their loss – seems to have crossed a line for some. David Callaway, a former Marine corps physician who served in Iraq and Kuwait in 2003, said: “For me it boils down to this: when you are in the military, you swear this oath and it’s service above self. For Trump, it’s all about service to self.

“He has never served any other cause except for his own greed and wealth, and for veterans the idea that this man would support and defend the constitution and the ideals on which our country was founded – that being liberty, equality, opportunity – initially was comical and now it’s just frightening.”

Callaway, 42, from Charlotte, North Carolina, added: “There’s no longer anybody who can make a rational argument that he’s just being unpredictable or he’s trying to keep our opponents on their toes, or he wants to spice up the debate. He’s just a petty demagogue and he will attack anybody at the slightest provocation and that’s not who we need as the commander-in-chief of our military.”

A friend, Dan McCready, served in the marine corps from 2005-09, and was then an inactive reserve, rising to captain. “In my view, Trump is the greatest threat to our constitution and our democracy of my lifetime, and people must view this as a final straw,” the 33-year-old said.

“I think a lot of Americans are living in a Facebook and Fox News distortion field. What I hear from many friends who are conservative is that Clinton is just as bad, that people view the selection as two equally bad choices. I think if you look at the facts and draw your information from reasonable sources, what Trump is doing and what he said is a thousand times worse than what Hillary has done and what Hillary has said.

“It makes me sick to my stomach,” McCready continued. “I think of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who gave up their one precious life for our country. He completely dishonours them. I think Mr and Mrs Khan represent what’s best about America and his belittling them, it really makes me sick.”

Not everyone agrees. In a response to questions from the Guardian posted on the Veterans for Trump website, the webmaster, Michael Kelly, said: “I struggle to understand how so much media attention is given to Mr Khan and virtually nothing given to Pat Smith and Charles Woods [parents of soldiers who died in the 2012 Benghazi attack who have criticised Clinton]. No, I still support Trump over Clinton.”

He added: “Donald Trump displays the ‘rugged individualism’ that makes America great. He exemplifies leadership qualities that I came to admire during my 23 years of military service.”



On Wednesday, Adam Kinzinger, a Republican congressman who is a veteran of the Iraq war, said he cannot support Trump in the wake of the row. “I don’t see how I get to Donald Trump anymore,” he told CNN. “Donald Trump for me is beginning to cross a lot of red lines of the unforgivable in politics.”