Pence defends military mom’s right to criticize Trump

RENO — Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence defended a military mom’s right to criticize Donald Trump’s comments about the Muslim parents of a slain U.S. Army veteran during a campaign stop in Nevada, and then lashed out at the media’s coverage of the controversy at the next. The Republican presidential nominee implied last week that Ghazala Khan, mother of Capt. Humayun Khan, stood silently alongside her husband at the Democratic National Convention because, as a Muslim, she was restricted from speaking. During his speech at last week’s DNC, Humayun Khan’s father, Khizr Khan, questioned whether Trump has read the Constitution, and said the billionaire businessman has “sacrificed nothing and no one,” leading Trump to respond. Pence said much of the same media criticizing Trump earlier condemned Patricia Smith’s speech at the GOP convention about the U.S. information officer killed in the 2012 attack in Benghazi.