Mark Kauzlarich/Reuters
According to former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, fallen U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan would still be alive today if Donald Trump were president. Khan, who was killed in Iraq by a suicide bomb in 2004, came into the national spotlight last week when his father, Muslim-American lawyer Khizr Khan, took the stage at the Democratic National Convention with his wife, Ghazala, and paid tribute to his son while delivering a sharp rebuke to Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric. The GOP presidential nominee subsequently began a highly public feud with Khan, at one point suggesting Ghazala stood silently at the DNC podium because she was not “allowed” by her Muslim husband.
Appearing Monday on CNN’s New Day, Lewandowski angrily declared, “If Donald Trump was the president, Captain Khan would be alive today because he never would have engaged in a war that didn't directly benefit this country. He’s been very clear about that fact and said I don’t support Iraq and I don’t support Afghanistan.” And even when anchorman Chris Berman noted that Trump told Howard Stern in 2002 that he supported the war, Lewandowski stood firm: “He’s been on the record multiple, multiple, multiple times saying he was against the war, unlike Hillary Clinton. If Donald Trump was president, these troops never would have gone... Captain Khan would be alive, as would 7,000 other soldiers.”