Donald Trump claims to have “the best temperament of anybody that’s ever run for the office of president.”
But does he have the constitution for it?
That’s a question of both his disposition and his knowledge of the actual U.S. Constitution ― sales of which have spiked after Khizr Khan, the father of a fallen Muslim American war hero, gave a powerful speech at the Democratic National Convention last week in which he asked if Trump had ever read it.
Two different copies of the founding document currently rank second and fourth on Amazon’s best-sellers list, days after Khan, toward the end of his speech, held a well-worn pocket copy of the Constitution aloft and assailed the Republican presidential nominee for failing to understand the basic principles of what it means to be American.
“Let me ask you, have you even read the U.S. Constitution?” Khan rhetorically asked Trump, then pulled a copy from his pocket and fierily offered, “I will gladly lend you my copy.”
“Look for the words ‘liberty’ and ‘equal protection of law.’ Have you ever been to Arlington National Cemetery? Go look at the graves of the brave patriots who died defending this country,” he said, concluding, “You have sacrificed nothing.”
Khan’s son, 27-year-old Army Capt. Humayun S.M. Khan, was killed in Iraq while investigating a vehicle packed with explosives. His actions saved the lives of his fellow soldiers.
Watch Khan’s speech in its entirety below.
As The Intercept points out, one of the copies of the Constitution that’s raced up the charts is actually an annotated version favored by right-wing conspiracy theorists, which Amazon fails to note in its product description. A sizable number of customers lament their purchase in the reviews.
After Khan's speech, the American Civil Liberties Union announced it would give away free copies of the document until Election Day. Within days, it sold out.
This story has been updated with news that the ACLU ran out of pocket Constitution copies.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims ― 1.6 billion members of an entire religion ― from entering the U.S.