In response to GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's plan to potential immigrants through an "extreme vetting process" that the candidate laid out Monday, Gold Star parent Khizr Khan challenged Trump tp take the United States' naturalization test himself. Khan previously made waves when he challenged Trump's knowledge of the constitution when he spoke at the Democratic National Convention last month.
As a part of his plan to supposedly screen out potential terrorists seeking to immigrate to the US, Trump said he would implement an "ideological test" to those seeking visas, putting them through what he referred to as "extreme vetting." Khan, who came to the United States from Pakistan in 1980 and became a US citizen told the Huffington Post Monday that he would be willing to take the naturalization test with Trump at any time:
I challenge Trump to take the naturalization test with me any day. His is demagoguery and pandering for vote. A divider like Trump can never be the steward of this country.
Khan also shot back at the Islamophobia that has been part and parcel of Trump's foreign policy platform from the beginning. Kahn told the Huffington Post over email:
This is my country too. We must make it safe, as Muslim Americans it is our obligation to keep our country safe. We reject all violence. We support better immigration policies. We stand as a testament to assimilation and being part of patriotic America as anyone else.
Nevada Senator Harry Reid joined Khan in saying Trump should take the citizenship test Monday in a statement. Reid wrote that Trump "would almost certainly fail, given his general ignorance and weak grasp of basic facts about American history, principles, and functioning of our government." Reid then wrote Trump "is nothing more than a spoiled, unpatriotic drain on society."Â
Trump has not yet responded to Khan's latest challenge, which could be because his own voter base disapproves of the way he has attacked the Khan and his wife Ghazala, whose son, US Army Captain Humayun Khan was killed in Iraq. An ABC News/ Washington Post survey released last week showed that 59 percent of Republicans disagreed with the way Trump was handling criticisms from the Khans. Â
Regarding previous criticisms from Khan, Trump had tweeted about the family and made Islamophobic comments regarding Ghazala Khan.
