Now VFW has had enough of Trump’s war with Gold Star parents

August 2, 2016 By William Goldschlag and Laura Figueroa   william.goldschlag@newsday.com, laura.figueroa@newsday.com

Donald Trump applauds after speaking during a town hall event on Monday, Aug. 1, 2016, in Columbus, Ohio. Despite criticism from GOP leaders and the VFW, his war of words with Khizr Khan, a Muslim who lost his son in Iraq, continued. (Credit: AP / Evan Vucci)

VFW: Stop ‘berating’ Khan family

Donald Trump received a wildly enthusiastic reception at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention last week. But that was last week.

On Monday, the VFW strongly denounced Trump’s attacks on Khizr and Ghazala Khan, parents of a Muslim U.S. soldier killed in Iraq in 2004, who appeared at the Democratic convention last week. “To ridicule a Gold Star Mother is out-of-bounds,” the VFW said. (See the statement here.)

“Election year or not, the VFW will not tolerate anyone berating a Gold Star family member for exercising his or her right of speech or expression,” said Brian Duffy, national commander of the group.

Trump woke up Monday ready to keep it up for a fourth day, tweeting at 7:10 a.m.: “Mr. Khan, who does not know me, viciously attacked me from the stage of the DNC and is now all over T.V. doing the same — Nice!” Later, he told an Ohio TV station that “what bothered Mr. Khan more than anything else” are his plans to keep out “radical Islamic terrorists.”

McCain: Trump defamed Khans

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said of Trump’s broadsides against the Khan family: “While our party has bestowed upon him the nomination, it is not accompanied by unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us.”

A statement from McCain said Trump also was wrong for proposals that ”suggested that the likes of their son should not be allowed in the United States.” (Full statement here.)

However, he did not withdraw support for Trump, who last year disparaged McCain’s Vietnam War record as a prisoner.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Trump ally, told The Washington Post that if McCain was not up for re-election, “he’d just keep his mouth shut.” But Giuliani also said he’d advise Trump to move on from the Khans.

Conspiracy theories floated

Pro-Trump websites such as Breitbart News and veteran dirty trickster Roger Stone are floating far-right fringe theories that Khizr Khan is a “Muslim Brotherhood agent” and his son — awarded the Bronze Star for trying to protect fellow soldiers from a suicide bomber’s attack — was on an “Islamist mission.”

Looks like a Clinton bounce

The first polls since the Democratic convention indicate Hillary Clinton has improved her standing. A CBS News survey put Clinton at 46% to 39% for Trump — a 7-point advantage. Between the conventions, they were tied.

A CNN/ORC survey also showed a Clinton bounce, leading Trump 52% to 43%. The 7-point upswing from CNN’s last poll came even though nearly twice as many voters don’t find her honest and trustworthy as those who do. But she gained 13 points among Bernie Sanders supporters.

A Gallup poll found that by 45% to 41%, Americans say the convention made them more likely to vote for Clinton. In contrast, by 51% to 36%, they were less likely to vote for Trump after his convention.

Trump: Harassed? Just quit

As Trump stuck by ousted Fox News chief Roger Ailes in the face of sexual harassment charges, he was asked in an interview last Tuesday what he would advise his daughter Ivanka if she was the target of such abuse.

“I would like to think she would find another career or find another company if that was the case,” he told interviewer Kirsten Powers, who writes a USA Today column and is a Fox News contributor.

Said between the lines?

Trump didn’t say what he now says he said about Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine and Crimea. But in any case, he tried to clarify it Monday.

“When I said in an interview that Putin ‘is not going into Ukraine, you can mark it down,’ I am saying if I am President. Already in Crimea!” Trump tweeted. “So with all the Obama tough talk on Russia and the Ukraine, they have already taken Crimea and continue to push. That’s what I said!”