President Donald Trump on Tuesday posthumously awarded Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, saying he was coming into the late conservative activist’s identify “into the roster of true American heroes.”
Erika Kirk, Kirk’s widow and now the CEO of Turning Point USA, accepted the award on her husband’s behalf on the Rose Garden ceremony. Introducing the award, a army aide introduced that the US honors Kirk as “a martyr for truth and freedom.”
Trump, who landed on the White House round 3 a.m. Tuesday after touring to the Middle East, stated, “I was going to call Erika and say, ‘Erica, could you maybe move it to Friday?’” But Trump stated it was a “definite” to return in time for the ceremony Tuesday, which might have been Kirk’s thirty second birthday.
Turning to Trump after accepting the award, Erika Kirk stated, “Thank you, Mr. President, for honoring my husband in such a profound and meaningful way, and thank you for making this event a priority with amid the peace process in the Middle East.”
It has been simply over a month since Charlie Kirk was shot and killed whereas debating with college students on his “America Comeback Tour” at Utah Valley University.
“He was assassinated in the prime of his life for boldly speaking the truth,” Trump stated Tuesday, calling the assassination “a horrible, heinous, demonic act of murder.”
Vice President JD Vance, second woman Usha Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, FBI Director Kash Patel and a number of other different Cabinet members have been in attendance. Vance, who was an in depth good friend of Kirk’s, sat within the entrance row, and Erika Kirk thanked the vp and his spouse, who flew to Salt Lake City to transport Kirk’s stays on Air Force Two.
Some Fox News hosts, former and current, additionally attended, together with Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. Other conservative on-line personalities have been seen within the Rose Garden, together with Jack Posobiec and Benny Johnson.
During his remarks, Trump credited Kirk with serving to him win and mobilize younger voters to get to the polls, joking that with out him, former Vice President Kamala Harris might need been within the White House relatively than him.
Trump mused that extra political violence comes from the Democratic facet of the aisle and laid blame on “far-left radicals,” who he stated have the “devil’s ideology.”
“Especially in the wake of Charlie’s assassination, our country must have absolutely no tolerance for this radical left, violence, extremism and terror,” the president stated.
Trump veered off subject at factors, together with talking about his efforts to crack down on crime by way of federal interference in Democratic-led cities.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, is offered to individuals who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States,” world peace, or “other significant public or private endeavors.”
Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 24 individuals throughout his first time period, together with posthumously to Babe Ruth, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Elvis Presley.
Since the beginning of his second time period, Trump introduced that he would additionally award the Medal of Freedom to former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani and former Housing and Urban and Development Secretary Ben Carson.