GLENDALE, Arizona — President Donald Trump on Sunday eulogized Charlie Kirk as a “martyr,” and decried his killing as a threat to the entire country.
“It was an assault on our most sacred God-given liberties and God-given rights,” Trump said. “The gun was pointed at him, but the bullet was aimed at all of us.”
The president called the killer a “radicalized cold-blooded monster,” and said most political violence is driven by the “radical left.” He vowed that his Justice Department would find those who fund and perpetrate political violence.
Trump was the final speech in an hourslong celebration of Kirk’s life that blended Christian themes of martyrdom with patriotism. The president’s 45-minute address followed speeches from other Cabinet members and high-ranking administration officials in an extraordinary display of government saluting the life and untimely death of a conservative icon.
More than 70,000 thousand red, white and blue-clad mourners packed into State Farm Stadium, home to the Arizona Cardinals football franchise, and the nearby Desert Diamond Arena overflow location in the Phoenix suburbs. They were there to honor Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of the youth-focused conservative organization Turning Point USA, who was shot to death on Sept. 10 while speaking at Utah Valley University in Utah. A suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was arrested and charged with murder last week.
The president’s speech was not one of unity, but he appeared to try to thread the needle at certain points — acknowledging that the problems plaguing the nation cross party lines, while still ultimately placing blame on the left.
“No side in American politics has a monopoly on disturbed or misguided people, but there’s one part of our political community which believes they have a monopoly on truth, goodness and virtue, and concludes they have also a monopoly on power, thought and speech. Well, that's not happening anymore,” Trump said. “If speech is violence, then some are bound to conclude that violence is justified to stop speech. And we’re not going to let that be justified.”
The tenor throughout the event was both mournful and defiant, with prominent Republican leaders’ remarks reflecting the issues and themes that have been turbocharged by Kirk’s death — Christian faith, the midterm elections, free speech and the threat of left-wing ideology conservatives have vowed to defeat.
Billed as a memorial service for Kirk, the event traded what might have been staid funerary trappings for a neon-drenched, rock concert Americana vibe, blending the feeling of Trump’s campaign rallies, Turning Point’s own events and an evangelical megachurch worship service. Attendees visited voter registration tables in the arena, with signs that read “Charlie wants you to register to vote,” as popular Christian musicians — Phil Wickham, Brandon Lake, Chris Tomlin, Kari Jobe Carnes and Cody Carnes — led the arena in worship.
Kirk’s wife, Erika, spoke before the president, saying a silent prayer before she approached the podium. She was emotional, recounting the day her husband died and what she’s seen in the days since — using much of her speech to talk about Kirk’s work to “revive the American family,” and his focus on “lost” young men.
“My husband Charlie, he wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life,” Erika Kirk said, breaking down as she said “I forgive him.”
“The answer to hate is not hate,” she continued. “The answer we know from the Gospel is love, and always love. Love for our enemies, and love for those who persecute us.”
She vowed to carry forward Kirk’s work at Turning Point USA as the organization’s new CEO, which will include continued debate on college campuses. She said “when you stop the conversation, when you stop the dialogue, this is what happens.”
It was a gathering that also appeared to presage the Republican Party’s future. Vice President JD Vance, a close friend of Kirk’s, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, likely contenders for the 2028 presidential nomination, took to the stage to memorialize Kirk.
“They tried to silence our friend Charlie Kirk, and tonight, we speak with Charlie and for Charlie louder than ever,” Vance said during his remarks. “The evil murderer who took Charlie from us expected us to have a funeral today, and instead, my friends, we have had a revival in celebration of Charlie Kirk and of his lord Jesus Christ.”
So many high-profile members of the Trump administration attended the event that the White House flew two planes to Arizona on Sunday morning, with a speaker line-up on par with a state funeral. In addition to Vance and Rubio, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, top Trump aides Stephen Miller and Sergio Gor also spoke at the event. Elon Musk, who did not speak, was seen sitting beside the president at one point during the memorial.
Republican and Democratic politicians alike have mourned Kirk’s death as a tragic act of political violence. But it has also ignited a national reckoning over free speech and language that incites violence.
To his supporters, Kirk was an unabashed champion of free speech and the free expression of religion who helped the Republican Party court younger voters in part by bucking woke cancel-culture scolds. To his detractors, he is someone who created space for anti-feminist, anti-trans and at times racist rhetoric to flourish.
The Sunday event appeared only likely to deepen the political divisions that former President Barack Obama warned of at an event last week. Obama called Kirk’s death, along with the shooting of Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman earlier this year, a “tragedy” but also implicated Trump in sowing further discord in the nation.
“There’s been some confusion, I think, around this lately, and, frankly, coming from the White House and some of the other positions of authority that suggest, even before we had determined who the perpetrator of this evil act was, that somehow we’re going to identify an enemy,” Obama said.
In the wake of Kirk’s death, the right has focused on curtailing what they characterize as “left-wing extremism.” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said during his remarks Sunday: “You have no idea the dragon you have awakened.”
“The day that Charlie died, the angels wept, but those tears have been turned into fire in our hearts, and that fire burns with a righteous fury that our enemies cannot comprehend or understand,” Miller said.
Late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel’s show was pulled from the air indefinitely last week by ABC and its parent company, Disney, after he made an observation about the suspect in the Kirk shooting. Kimmel said that the “MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” even though Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, said the prior weekend that the suspect had been influenced by “leftist ideology.” According to law enforcement officials, the suspect had accused Kirk of spreading hate.
ABC’s decision followed threats from Federal Communications Chair Brendan Carr to take action against the company, including fines or a suspension of broadcast licenses. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) last week called Carr’s threats “dangerous as hell,” saying that “threatening government power to force [Kimmel] off air” was a “real mistake.”
At the same time, Trump said he was going to designate antifa, a loose association of groups that share a similar ideology, a terrorist organization, though it remains unclear what authority he intends to use and how, practically, the government might be able to accomplish that.
The president sounded a serious note speaking with reporters before departing the White House on Sunday morning. He said it was going to be a “very tough day,” calling Kirk “a young man, a great man.”
Mourners had been gathering outside Turning Point’s Phoenix headquarters in the days since Kirk’s death, leaving flowers, candles, flags and other mementos.
“He’s a martyr now for American freedom,” Trump said during Sunday’s event. “I know I speak for everyone here today when I say that none of us will ever forget Charlie Kirk, and neither now will history.”
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