Donald Trump said that maybe I wasn’t allowed to say anything. That is not true. My husband asked me if I wanted to speak, but I told him I could not… - Khizr and Ghazala Khan

We are private people. We participated in this convention, because a tribute was being paid. And there was context to my conversation, was that we had been patiently been subjected to maligning of this candidate for a whole year. Enough is enough. ... Every decent Republican has rebuked his behavior; yet, nobody has stood up and said, "Enough, stop it. You will not be our candidate."

What is important to me now is that end this back and forth, back and forth that had been lack of caliber on the other side. Just imagine and I want to indulge all of his surrogates, after we made the speech, if Donald Trump would have not taken that cheap shot at the gold star mother, we'd not be having these conversations, these discussions. Sometime for a candidate for a higher office has to have the capacity to bear with the criticism. If I had exercised my First Amendment rights as Mr. Trump does, as Donald Trump does, again and again and again, as he had been maligning Hillary Clinton, calling her names and other leaders, if he can exercise the freedom of his speech rights, so can I. But he is the candidate for the highest office, a much larger caliber is needed, tolerance, patience. When a person becomes , president, you are president and Commander-in-Chief of everybody that has supported you and that has not supported you.

Like many immigrants, we came to this country empty-handed. We believed in American democracy — that with hard work and the goodness of this country, we could share in and contribute to its blessings.