Refuses to back down and continues attacks on Khan family despite bipartisan pleas

Even after days of backlash over his comments about Khizr and Ghazala Khan, Trump spent August 1, 2016 doubling down instead of apologizing. NPR and ABC report that he continued to tweet about the family of Capt. Humayun Khan and, in interviews, insisted that he had been treated “unfairly,” while prominent Republicans and veterans groups urged him to stop attacking the Muslim Gold Star parents. Rather than acknowledging their loss or walking back his suggestion that Ghazala might not have been “allowed” to speak, he treated the controversy as a personal grievance and kept questioning the family’s motives, reinforcing his pattern of turning criticism from vulnerable targets—including grieving families—into an excuse for further bullying and Islamophobic insinuations.

"Donald Trump continued to tweet about the family of a fallen soldier on Monday morning, despite pleas from John McCain and others for him to stop." — August 1, 2016 NPR summary of Trump’s decision to keep attacking the Khans on Twitter and in statements, even as Republican leaders and veterans groups asked him to drop the feud.