Hillary Clinton’s campaign has released an exceptionally effective video in which Khizr Khan tells the story of his son, Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq while stopping a suicide bomber in 2004.
“He saw a suicide bomber approaching his camp,” Khizr Khan explains as he walks in living room toward a photo of the fallen soldier. “My son moved forward to stop the bomber. When the bomb exploded he saved everyone in his unit. Only one American soldier died. My son was Captain Humayun Khan. He was 27 years old and he was a Muslim American.” Khizr Khan’s voice starts to break as he says, “I want to ask Mr. Trump, would my son have a place in your America?”
What makes this ad so bracing is not just the story of Khizr Khan, but that last question, which lays out the implications of Trump’s xenophobia in the most basic terms.