WATCH: Gold Star Father Khan’s Moving Response To Donald Trump’s ‘Callous’ Debate Comments About His Son

Gold Star father Khizr Khan and a soldier who served with his war-hero son blasted Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s attempt to exploit Captain Humayun Khan’s death.

During Sunday night’s presidential debate, Trump made a ham-handed effort to look sensitive to the Khan family (after outrageously smearing them). But it was clear that Trump’s real goal was to use Capt. Khan’s death in his statement:

“First of all, Captain [Humayun] Khan is an American hero, and if I were president at that time, he would be alive today, because unlike her, who voted for the war without knowing what she was doing, I would not have had our people in Iraq. Iraq was a disaster. So he would have been alive today.”

Monday night, Khizr Khan and Joshua Manning, a soldier who served with Capt. Khan, responded on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.

First, Khan blasted Trump:

“The comments from Donald Trump were so disingenuous. Like before, he continues to use sacrifices of our young men and women for political expediency, and I reject it and the rest of the veterans and the people that serve this country reject this political expediency.”

Then came Manning. O’Donnell read Manning’s touching tweet which he pinned to the top of his Twitter feed the night of the debate.

On MSNBC, Manning described the incident in which Capt. Khan saved other lives at the cost of his own. Manning concluded:

“That act of bravery, that act of leadership… just taught me so much about what it means when the army talks about selfless service.”

While Manning spoke, Khizr Khan fought back tears.

But he recovered in time to rip Trump a new one:

“I had said that this person lacks empathy to be the leader of this country, unsuitable temperamentally and otherwise to be even candidate for the presidency of United States, to be the candidate for the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of United States. I have said that before and I repeat again.

[…]

I am surprised that our Republican patriots – how will they rebuild this party? […] They used to be the banner bearer of the family values. Is this their representative? Why haven’t they all repudiated him and distanced so that they can rebuild the Republican Party to be the family value party as it used to be?”

I think the Republican Party is going to have to address these questions for quite a long time.

Watch Khan prove yet again that Donald Trump will never be half the patriot this Muslim immigrant, from the October 10, 2016 The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, via Crooks and Liars:

Ellen Brodsky is a long time blogger for NewsHounds.us and a contributor to Crooks and Liars. She has also worked as a researcher for Brave New Films' landmark documentary, "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" and "Iraq for Sale."