John McCain Denounces Donald Trump’s Comments on Family of Muslim Soldier

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WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain sharply criticized Donald J. Trump’s comments about the family of a fallen Muslim Army captain on Monday, a rebuke that provided an opening for other vulnerable Republican senators to do the same, even though they all stopped short of rescinding their endorsements of him.

“While our party has bestowed upon him the nomination, it is not accompanied by unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us,” Mr. McCain, a war hero whose service and capture in Vietnam were also once derided by Mr. Trump, said in a remarkable and lengthy written reproach of his party’s presidential nominee.

Within an hour, other embattled Republican senators, who like Mr. McCain are trying to stand between the forces propelling Mr. Trump and those he offends, offered their own condemnations.

They were soon joined by President Obama, who chastised Mr. Trump without naming him, and the head of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Brian Duffy. Mr. Duffy said his organization would not “tolerate anyone berating a Gold Star family member for exercising his or her right of speech or expression.”

Senator Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, whose husband is a veteran of the Iraq war and who is fighting to win a second term, said Monday that she was “appalled” by Mr. Trump’s comments. A spokeswoman for Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, also weighed in, as did Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. They denounced Mr. Trump’s words but did not reverse their endorsements.

“I remember how much I worried about my son Matt during his years of active duty,” said Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri. “The Khans have made the greatest possible sacrifice for our country; they deserve to be heard and respected.”

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, told The Des Moines Register: “Mr. Trump’s comments are not in line with my own beliefs about how the members of the military and their families should be treated.”

Despite the intensifying criticism from Republican Party leaders, Mr. Trump on Monday showed no sign of relenting in his clash with the fallen soldier’s family. He has not apologized for his suggestion that the soldier’s father, Khizr Khan, might have forbidden his wife to speak during his address last week at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, nor has Mr. Trump acknowledged the mounting rebukes from respected Republicans like Mr. McCain.

On Monday morning, Mr. Trump continued to criticize Mr. Khan, whose son Capt. Humayun Khan was killed in Iraq in 2004. Mr. Trump complained that Mr. Khan had become a ubiquitous presence in the news media since his speech at the convention, in which he excoriated the Republican presidential nominee.

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“Mr. Khan, who does not know me, viciously attacked me from the stage of the DNC and is now all over T.V. doing the same,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “Nice!”

In a second post, Mr. Trump shifted course and said the campaign should be focused on terrorism. “This story is not about Mr. Khan, who is all over the place doing interviews, but rather RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM and the U.S.,” he wrote. “Get smart!”

At a town-hall-style gathering on Monday in Columbus, Ohio, Mr. Trump did not mention the Khans but said of veterans, “I know the vets. I think I have tremendous support with the vets.”

His running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, was asked about Mr. Trump’s remarks at a campaign stop in Carson City, Nev., on Monday evening. After calling Captain Khan an American hero, Mr. Pence defended Mr. Trump, saying that he “supports our soldiers and supports our veterans like no other leader in my lifetime.”

Even as pressure increased from establishment Republicans who have been calling for repudiation of Mr. Trump, neither Speaker Paul D. Ryan nor Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, has pulled his support for Mr. Trump’s candidacy. They offered statements on Sunday in support of the Khan family, but did not mention Mr. Trump by name.

For congressional Republicans, Mr. Trump’s inflammatory remarks are a vexing challenge. On one hand, they want to distance themselves just enough to try to grab support from voters of both parties who do not intend to vote for Mr. Trump but may split their tickets. But they do not want to outright flip on their prior endorsements of Mr. Trump, because they need his supporters’ votes to win, too.

“These candidates have refused to walk the tightrope the media creates and have instead forged their own path, with their own views and sentiments about an agenda for the future,” said Josh Holmes, Mr. McConnell’s former chief of staff, who now works as a Republican consultant. “By defining the race on their own terms, they have reminded voters they have a senator who is looking out for their interests regardless of how they may feel about the presidential nominees.”

Republican leaders believe they need to continue to support Mr. Trump, if only to provide cover for the party’s candidates up for re-election. Republicans struggle to name policy positions of Mr. Trump that they prefer to those of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, but they often settle on their fear of the type of justices a President Clinton would name to the Supreme Court.

“There is obviously a concern about having a Democratic president and Senate confirming justices both on the Supreme Court and across the federal bench,” said Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona. “I certainly am concerned about that, too, and I know it will cause some people to ignore or justify statements he has made that for many of us raises concerns.”

Aides to Republicans up for re-election also say, for the most part, they see no evidence in the polls that Mr. Trump has been a drag on lower-level races. This is particularly interesting since ticket splitting — when voters pick one party’s candidate for the White House and another for the House or Senate — has declined precipitously in recent years.

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Mr. McCain is the embodiment of the internal conflict Republican candidates face. Reverence for the military has been at the core of Mr. McCain’s career — he was his party’s nominee for president in 2008 and is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee — and he has a close allegiance to families of those killed in conflict.

“I wear a bracelet bearing the name of a fallen hero, Matthew Stanley, which his mother, Lynn, gave me in 2007 at a town-hall meeting in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire,” Mr. McCain said in his written statement. “His memory and the memory of our great leaders deserve better from me.”

“Make no mistake: I do not valorize our military out of some unfamiliar instinct,” he wrote. “I grew up in a military family, and have my own record of service, and have stayed closely engaged with our armed forces throughout my public career. In the American system, the military has value only inasmuch as it protects and defends the liberties of the people.”

He added: “I claim no moral superiority over Donald Trump. I have a long and well-known public and private record for which I will have to answer at the Final Judgment, and I repose my hope in the promise of mercy and the moderation of age. I challenge the nominee to set the example for what our country can and should represent.”

Mr. McCain’s family has also been critical of Mr. Trump. His daughter Meghan McCain said on Twitter on Saturday: “I would ask what kind of barbarian would attack the parents of a fallen soldier, but oh yeah it’s the same person who attacks POW’s.”

Without naming Mr. Trump, Mr. Obama made his message clear when he said that “no one — no one — has given more for our freedom and security than our Gold Star families.”

Mr. Duffy, the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, was far more direct. “There are certain sacrosanct subjects that no amount of wordsmithing can repair once crossed,” he said.