WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump posthumously awarded conservative activist Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Kirk, the co-founder of the organization Turning Point USA, was speaking at Utah Valley University during the first stop on a college campus tour when he was shot and killed on Sept. 10.
“We’re here to honor and remember a fearless warrior for liberty, a beloved leader who galvanized the next generation like nobody I’ve ever seen before, and an American patriot of the deepest conviction,” Trump said, calling Kirk "a visionary." "He was a champion in every way,” the president said.
Trump said he "raced back halfway around the globe" 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 Presidential Medal of Freedom to the conservative activist the day after Kirk was fatally shot.
Erika Kirk accepted the medal on his behalf on what would have been his 32nd birthday. She was named CEO of Turning Point USA in the days after her husband's assassination.
“God began a mighty work through my husband, and I intend to see it through,” Erika Kirk said. “The torch is in our hands now. It’s in mine. It’s in yours. It’s in all of yours. It’s in all the students with Turning Point USA.”
In her remarks, Kirk thanked Trump and first lady Melania Trump for the event, and Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance for the “unbelievable encouragement” of their friendship. The Vances, close friends of the Kirks, accompanied Erika Kirk home from Utah, carrying her husband’s casket on the vice president’s plane.
At one point, Kirk responded to Trump, who moments earlier had said that he didn’t recognize the image of Kirk as someone who “loved his enemies.” “He did pray for his enemies,” she responded, turning toward Trump as he smiled. “I saw him do it.”
“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 her 3-year-old daughter, wishing her father a happy birthday. She also noted that her son, who isn't yet talking, “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 fully potty trained at 16 months.”
In attendance at the Rose Garden event were Cabinet officials, Republican congressional leaders, friends and members of Kirk’s family. 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 who was in attendance, has praised Erika Kirk as a gifted speaker, telling NBC News in a recent interview that he did not think there was anyone better suited to lead the group. “She was by Charlie’s side as he took it from a small organization to a behemoth,” he said.
Turning Point, the organization Kirk led and founded, became a force in recent elections, notably in last year’s presidential election, as it targeted young voters to boost Republican turnout. The group's efforts were particularly effective among young men, and Trump 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 successfully won a larger share of voters under the age of 30 than any Republican presidential candidate in decades.
The medal comes amid 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 fund them and finance them, and we’re finding out who those networks are.”
