Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry Slams Gold Star Family That Criticized Donald Trump

AUSTIN, TX — Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday verbally attacked the Gold Star Family whose patriarch took Donald Trump to task during the Democratic National Convention for his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

A Trump surrogate, Perry appeared on CNN during an on-air interview on Tuesday. He criticized Khizr Khan, the Muslim-American man whose son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, died at the age of 27 in a suicide bombing in Baghdad while fighting for the U.S. 12 years ago. The elder Khan famously criticized Trump during the DNC last month, revealing his pocket copy of the Constitution while questioning the real-estate-mogul-turned-candidate over his proposed ban on Muslim immigrants should he become president.

Trump has dropped precipitously in the polls against Hillary Clinton after criticizing Khan for his speech. Trump took his attack a step further, wondering aloud in an ABC News interview if Khan's wife, silently standing next to him during his speech, was even allowed to speak as he theorized on Muslim custom. (She later explained that the mere sight of a photo of her dead son, like the oversize one serving as backdrop to her husband's speech, renders her too emotional to speak given her ongoing mourning).

"If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say," Trump told ABC News. "She probably, maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.”

Trump has taken a hit after going after the Khan family instead of simply letting it go, including earning the rare and elusive bipartisan condemnation. Since the debacle, Clinton now leads him virtually across the board, in the double digits at some states.

But somehow, Perry didn't get the memo.

"In a campaign, if you’re going to go out and think that you can take a shot at somebody and not have incoming coming back at you, shame on you," Perry said in the CNN interview, directing his comments to Khan. He told his interviewer that Khan "struck the first blow" in criticizing Trump.

Already, Perry — who has twice run failed campaigns for president — is being pilloried on social media.

Other politicians, including conservatives, have offered unqualified moral support to Gold Star Families, even those at odds ideologically. When asked about Khan's turn on the national stage, current Gov. Greg Abbott issued a statement saying the service of such families "cannot be questioned."

Perry's shot at the Khan family comes four days after Carl Paladino, co-chairman of Trump's campaign in New York, also took Khan to task for criticizing his boss. Paladino outdid Perry, offering a more strident condemnation of the still-grieving father of an American serviceman.

“All right, I don’t care if he’s a Gold Star parent," he said on the "Imus in the Morning" radio show. "He certainly doesn’t deserve that title, OK, if he’s as anti-American as he’s illustrated in his speeches and in his discussion. I mean, if he’s a member of the Muslim Brotherhood or supporting, you know, the ISIS-type of attitude against America, there’s no reason for Donald Trump to have to honor this man.”

Businessman Paladino pulled off an upset for the Republican nomination in his 2010 run for governor of New York over Rick Lazio before losing in a landslide against Democrat Andrew Cuomo in the general election (63 percent to 33 percent).

For his part, Perry first gained national recognition when he ran an ultimately failed campaign for president during the 2012 race. During a debate with his GOP rivals, he provided one of the most memorable political gaffes in American history, forgetting one of the three federal agencies he passionately vowed to eliminate should he become president.

"Oops," Perry offered sheepishly after failing to come up with the third agency after several attempts to recall all of them.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr