JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — With 100 days left before the fall election, Hillary Clinton’s campaign bus wended its way through Western Pennsylvania as Donald Trump picked a new fight with the bereaved father of a Muslim Army captain.
In a well-received Democratic convention speech, Muslim lawyer Khizr Khan said Trump has ‘‘sacrificed nothing and no one’’ for his country. Trump disputed that Saturday, saying he’d given up a lot for his businesses.
‘‘I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures,’’ he said, in an interview with ABC’s ‘‘This Week.’’ He added: ‘‘Sure those are sacrifices.’’
Khan gave a moving tribute to his son, Humayun, who posthumously received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart after he was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2004.
Trump also reiterated his criticism of Khan’s wife, Ghazala, who stood silently on stage, wearing a headscarf. ‘‘If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably — maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.’’
Ghazala Khan has said she didn’t speak because she’s still overwhelmed by her grief and can’t even look at photos of her son without crying. Trump’s comments sparked outrage on social media, both for attacking a mourning mother and because many considered them racist and anti-Muslim.
In an interview with the New York Times Saturday, Khizr Khan lashed out at Trump, saying, “He is devoid of feeling the pain of a mother who has sacrificed her son.’’
Khan said his wife helped him craft the remarks and even told him to remove certain attacks he had wanted to make against Trump.
“Unlike Donald Trump’s wife, I didn’t plagiarize my speech,’’ Khan said, referring to how several lines from a Michelle Obama speech found their way into Melania Trump’s address at the Republican convention.
“I also wanted to talk about how he’s had three wives, and yet he talks about others’ ethics and their religion,’’ Khan said. “I wanted to say 10 other things about him, and she said, ‘Don’t go to his level. We are paying tribute to our son.'’’
Trump’s anti-immigrant, antidiversity, antitrade message has appealed to white working class voters, who feel frustrated with an economic recovery that’s largely left them behind.
On Saturday, Clinton made stops in rural Western Pennsylvania, a largely white part of the swing state that traditionally votes Republican.
Clinton is playing up economic opportunity, diversity, and national security. Democrats hammered home those themes last week with an array of politicians, celebrities, gun-violence victims, law enforcement officers, and activists of all races and sexual orientation.
Their goal is to turn out the coalition of minority, female, and young voters that twice elected President Obama while blunting some of the expected losses among the white men.
Trump has made plans to visit some of the same areas Clinton is campaigning in during her three-day bus tour through Ohio and Pennsylvania, scheduling stops Monday in Columbus and Cleveland.
Trump’s comments about Khan come a day after, while campaigning in Colorado, he attacked retired four-star General John Allen while holding a rally in front of military aircraft, and slammed a Colorado Springs fire marshal for capping attendance at his event.
The fire marshal, Brett Lacey, was recently honored by the city as ‘‘Civilian of the Year’’ for his role in helping the wounded at a 2015 mass shooting at a local Planned Parenthood.
The Trump campaign is feeling confident about the bump the nominee received from his nominating convention.
Trump barnstormed in Iowa and Colorado as the Democratic convention wound down. He also seemed poised to try to expand the electoral map by venturing into a pair of traditionally blue states: Maine and his home state of New York.
Clinton was joined on the bus tour by her husband, Bill Clinton, and her running mate, Tim Kaine, and his wife, Anne Holton. She stopped at a toy and plastics manufacturer in Hatfield, Pa., where she and Kaine cast Trump as a con artist out for his own gain.
