Senator John McCain and the largest US war veterans group have condemned Donald Trump for comments about the family of a slain Muslim-American soldier, as new polling shows Mr Trump slipping behind White House rival Hillary Clinton.
In a searing 700-word letter, Mr McCain attempted to distance himself from Mr Trump, whom he had previously endorsed, as a leading veterans group denounced his attack on the decorated soldier’s parents, Khizr and Ghazala Khan, who addressed the Democratic convention last week.
Over the weekend, Mr Trump suggested that Mrs Khan had stood silently next to her husband at the convention because “maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say”, and has previously mocked Mr McCain for being captured as a Vietnam prisoner of war.