A veterans group and the main pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC have released a new ad featuring a Gold Star mother saying she felt a sense of “outrage” after Mr. Trump’s recent comments about fellow Gold Star mother Ghazala Khan.
The ad, released by VoteVets PAC and Priorities USA Action, features Michelle DeFord, whose son, Sgt. David Johnson, was killed in Iraq in 2004. Sgt. Johnson had joined the National Guard after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“When I saw Donald Trump attack another Gold Star mother, I felt such a sense of outrage,” she says in the 60-second ad.
Ms. DeFord is referring to Mr. Trump’s spat with Ghazala and Khizr Khan, the parents of Sgt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq in 2004. Sgt. Khan’s parents appeared at the Democratic National Convention, and Mr. Trump said afterward that perhaps Ghazala Khan, who did not speak, wasn’t allowed to have anything to say.
Mrs. Khan has since said she was too overcome with grief to speak.
“I would like to tell Donald Trump what it feels like — the sense of emptiness that only losing a child can bring,” Ms. DeFord says in the ad. “Those people should be honored and treated with kindness for the rest of their life. And I don’t think that Donald Trump will ever understand that.”
The pro-Clinton group Priorities USA Action released the ad along with VoteVets, a group that recently released an open letter written to Mr. Trump by Gold Star families demanding he apologize to the Khans.
The ad is backed by a $5.4 million buy, and will run statewide in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Colorado, and nationally on MSNBC, CNN and Fox.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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