Trump posthumously awards Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom a month after his killing
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump posthumously awarded conservative activist Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Kirk, co-founder of the organization Turning Point USA, was speaking at Utah Valley University on the first stop of a college campus tour when he was shot and killed on September 10.
“We are here to honor and remember a fearless warrior for freedom, a beloved leader who galvanized the next generation like no one I have ever seen before, and an American patriot of the deepest convictions,” Trump said, calling Kirk a “visionary.” “He was a champion in every way,” the president said.
Trump said he “ran halfway around the world” to present the medal after brokering a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, and admitted he “didn’t have the courage” to ask his widow, Erika, to move the date when he realized it would fall on Kirk’s birthday.
Trump announced he would present the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the conservative activist the day after Kirk’s death.
Erika Kirk accepted the medal on his behalf on what would have been his 32nd birthday. She was named CEO of Turning Point USA days after her husband’s assassination.
“God has begun a mighty work through my husband, and I intend to see it through,” Erika Kirk said. “The torch is in our hands now. It is in mine. It is in yours. It is in yours. It is in all the students of Turning Point USA.”
In his remarks, Kirk thanked Trump and first lady Melania Trump for the event, as well as Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance for the “incredible encouragement” of their friendship. The Vances, close friends of the Kirks, accompanied Erika Kirk home from Utah, carrying her husband’s casket onto the vice president’s plane.
At one point, Kirk responded to Trump, who had said moments earlier that he didn’t recognize Kirk’s image as someone who “loved his enemies.” “He prayed for his enemies,” she responded, turning to Trump as he smiled. “I saw him do that.”
“He also loved people when it was inconvenient, and he ran his race with endurance and he kept the faith,” Kirk said. “And now he wears the crown of a righteous martyr.”
Kirk shared a message from his 3-year-old daughter, wishing her father a happy birthday. She also noted that her son, who is not yet speaking, “in classic Kirk family fashion, his actions spoke louder than his words and his gift to you, Charlie and myself, for that matter, was deciding to become the man of the house and be completely potty trained at 16 months.”
Present at the Rose Garden event were Cabinet officials, Republican congressional leaders, friends and family members of Kirk. Prominent conservative media figures Tucker Carlson, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity also attended the ceremony.
Alex Bruesewitz, a Trump adviser and friend of the Kirks in attendance, praised Erika Kirk as a talented speaker, telling NBC News in a recent interview that he didn’t think there was anyone better suited to lead the group. “She was at Charlie’s side as he grew from a small organization to a giant,” he said.
Turning Point, the organization run and founded by Kirk, has become a force in recent elections, including last year’s presidential election, by targeting young voters to increase Republican turnout. The group’s efforts have been particularly effective among young men, and Trump has credited the organization with helping him, in part, win re-election.
Kirk was also an influential advocate for conservative principles on college campuses, leading debates, overseeing a network of Turning Point chapters, and organizing speaking tours and conferences to elevate conservative voices.
Kirk’s strategy paid off, and Trump managed to win over a larger share of voters under 30 than any Republican presidential candidate in decades.
The medal comes as part of a broader crackdown on left-wing groups, with Trump declaring that “in the wake of Charlie’s assassination, our country must have absolutely no tolerance for this radical left, violence, extremism and terror.”
Trump said his administration was engaged in “dismantling the networks that finance them and finance them, and we find out who those networks are.”
He continued: “We are done with angry mobs and we are not going to let our cities become dangerous. »
Sirens sounded in the background.
“You hear these sirens going off. That’s good,” Trump said, calling them “real sirens; they’re not politically correct sirens” and urging the crowd to “listen to the beauty of that sound.”
