Donald Trump on Khan Family: 'I Have Great Respect' For Them, 'But...'

In a sit-down interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos aired Thursday, Donald Trump once again resurfaced his feud with the Gold Star family of a Muslim-American soldier killed in combat.

Trump was asked a broad question about his notable remarks toward some figures that have drawn national attention — including the federal judge of Hispanic descent whom Trump said would not treat him fairly in a trail and the parents of Capt. Humayun Saqib Muazzam Khan.

"Do you think you should have apologized to the Khans or Judge Curiel?" Trump was asked.

Instead of dodging or deflecting (or offering a heartfelt apology for his statements), Trump went right into defensive mode.

"I have great respect for the Khan family, I have great respect," Trump told Stephanopoulos. "But if I were president at that time, Capt. Khan would be alive today, George. Because I wouldn’t have been in Iraq."

That last statement is dubious at best, and completely false at worst.

Trump's only on-record statement about his support, or lack thereof, for intervention in Iraq before America's action began was for the war.

When asked by Howard Stern in 2002 if he would be for military action in Iraq, he said, "Yeah, I guess so; I wish the first time it was done correctly."

He did come out against the war in a profile published in Esquire, but that wasn't until 2004, a year after the war began.

Capt. Khan died in June 2004.

Stephanopoulos pushed back on Trump's assertions, citing the Stern interview, but Trump doubled down on his defense.

"That was way before," Trump said about the interview with Stern. "If you look at just before the war started, I said, 'Don’t do it, it’s a mistake, you’re going to destabilize the Middle East.' From the beginning, I was opposed to the war in Iraq. Had I been president, Capt. Khan would be alive today. We wouldn’t have been in this horrible, horrible mistake in the war in Iraq."

If Trump ever did make such statements before the war began, they haven't been made public.

Khizr Khan, the Khan family patriarch whose tearful speech at the Democratic National Convention pushed his family into the national spotlight, said Trump's comments to Stephanopoulos showed he lacked empathy.

"This is the most cruel thing you could say to grieving parents — that if I was there this would not have happened," Khan told ABC News. "There’s no sincerity in those remarks. He utters these words totally oblivious to the understanding of where we are, where we stand, what our values are, and how to express — how to be empathetic.

"This is one characteristic that a leader must have to lead our great country, to be the commander-in-chief of the United States — empathy. And this person totally lacks that."

Watch the full exchange between Trump and Stephanopoulos below:

The Khan family — who once lived in Silver Spring, where Capt. Khan went to high school — have continued to play a prominent role in this year's campaign.

Khizr Khan recently appeared in a campaign ad for Hillary Clinton, asking Trump if Capt. Khan would have had a place in Trump's America. Trump has proposed banning all Muslims from coming to the United States.

“He saved everyone in his unit. Only one American soldier died. My son was Capt. Humayan Khan. He was 27 years old, and he was Muslim-American,” Khizr Khan says in the ad through tears. “I want to ask Mr. Trump, would my son have a place in your America?”

And Khizr Khan was scheduled to make campaign appearances for Clinton in the closing days of the election season.

Image: ABC News screenshot