(The Lion) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday awarded Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, on what would have been Kirk’s 32nd birthday.
Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA who was assassinated during an event at Utah Valley University in September, was an energetic Trump ally and was known for promoting civil discourse on politics and culture on college campuses.
“Today we’re here to honor and remember a fearless warrior for liberty, beloved leader who galvanized the next generation like nobody I’ve ever seen before, and an American patriot of the deepest conviction, the finest quality and the highest caliber – the late, great, Charlie. Kirk,” Trump said in his remarks at the White House’s Rose Garden.
The ceremony was attended by Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, who accepted the award on his behalf. Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, Argentine President Javier Milei, and “just about all” of Trump’s cabinet were also in attendance, Trump said.
Trump said he “raced back halfway around the globe” for the ceremony, arriving at the White House in the early hours of the morning following a trip to the Middle East to secure peace in the region.
“Charlie never missed an opportunity to remind us of the Judeo-Christian principles of our nation’s founding or to share his deep Christian faith in his final moments. Charlie testified to the greatness of America and to the glory of our Savior with whom he now rests in heaven,” Trump said, while noting the “beautiful” weather in Washington, D.C., for the ceremony.
“In the days since Charlie’s killing, we’ve seen exactly why our country so dearly needed his example,” Trump said. “We’ve watched legions of far-left radicals resort to desperate acts of violence and terror because they know that their ideas and arguments are persuading no one. They know that they’re failing.”
Kirk, who had close ties to the Trump administration, is the first person to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom during Trump’s second term, although others have been announced for it.
Receiving the Medal of Freedom is a “really big deal,” Trump said directly ahead of awarding it. “Very few people get it. Very few people, frankly, qualify.”
Erika Kirk, as she accepted the award on her husband’s behalf, thanked Trump for honoring him in “a profound and meaningful way.”
“He believed that liberty was both a right and responsibility, and he used to say ‘freedom is the ability to do what is right without fear,’ and that’s how he lived,” she said. “He was free from fear. He was free from compromise, free from anything that could enslave his soul.”
From the day she met him, Erika said she saw “fire in his soul” and a “divine restlessness within him that came from knowing God placed him on this Earth to protect something very sacred for all of us”: freedom.
She praised his ability as a communicator who could speak to all generations, and his belief there can be no freedom without moral responsibility and faith.
Erika said her husband wasn’t one for extravagance or being the center of attention.
“I have spent seven and a half years trying to find the perfect birthday gift for Charlie, and it’s so difficult,” she said, adding he wasn’t a materialistic man. “But now I can say with confidence, Mr. President, that you have given him the best birthday gift he could ever have.”
