Gold Star father Khizr Khan comes to Iowa City after backing Biden's presidential bid

Isaac Hamlet | Iowa City Press-Citizen

In November, Gold Star father Khizr Khan announced his endorsement of former vice president, and current 2020 presidential candidate Joe Bidden.

"Vice President Biden has always put the country above himself...Vice President Biden has never wavered in his commitment to our country," Khan said in his endorsement. "President Donald Trump, on the other hand, has consistently chosen self over the country, seeking the aid of totalitarian governments to sway elections and undermine our rule of law to serve his self-interest."

Readers may remember Khan as the father of Capt. Humayun Khan, a U.S. veteran who died in 2004 while serving in Iraq. During the 2016 election, Khan spoke during the Democratic National Convention to denounce then-candidate Trump for suggesting a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the U.S."

"(Humayun) in my own head dreams too of being a military lawyer, but he put those dreams aside the day he sacrificed his life to save the lives of his fellow soldiers," Khan said in his 2016 speech. "If it was up to Donald Trump, (my son) never would have been in America. Donald Trump constantly smears the character of Muslims."

The thing Khan dreaded came to pass two years ago when Trump exercised executive power to institute a travel ban aimed at majority Muslim countries, ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court.

Khan's appearance swing in support of Biden was initially supposed to begin in New Hampshire, but scheduling difficulties caused him to come to Iowa first, starting with Des Moines on Dec. 13 and Iowa City on Saturday.

"I appreciate what you're doing out here," Khan told local volunteers canvassing on behalf of Biden. "You're the first line in defense of our democracy."

Over the course of the hour, Khan continued to thank the room of supporters for their work while expressing his concern for democracy under the current administration. Khan mentioned the reported Russian attempts to tamper with the 2016 American election and highlighted the "Russian Strategic Intentions" documents released this past May.

The document is a 160-plus page study from the Pentagon expressing an expert opinion on what Russia's global ambitionsare.

Khan believes that, among the 15 remaining Democratic candidates, Biden is the one most ready to fill the role of commander and chief.

“We have observed the deterioration of America’s place in the world and we have witnessed how the incumbent is trampling over our institutions, our democracy, our congress," Khan told the Press-Citizen, alluding to NATO meetings in which footage suggests world leaders were laughing at Trump.

“We need to make sure we have a leader like Joe Biden who will present America with dignity, with honor," Khan said.

That video footage was run in an attack ad against the president by the Biden campaign earlier this month. Also released by the Biden campaign earlier this month was an immigration plan. Khan favors Biden's approach to immigration over Trump's methods which — Khan pointed out — recently saw the president attempt to use federal military construction money to fund a border wall.

"There need to be laws and rules and regulations, but in a humane way," said Khan. "This incumbent has done nothing. He has only continued to scam people... Now he’s taking the budget out of the department of the defense to try to build the wall and the courts have stopped it. That is not the legal way of doing things.”

Isaac Hamlet covers arts, entertainment and culture at the Press-Citizen. Reach him at ihamlet@press-citizen.com or (319)-688-4247, follow him on Twitter @IsaacHamlet