WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump honored his deceased friend, Charlie Kirk, with the nation’s highest civilian honor: the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Friends of Kirk gathered Tuesday at the White House in the Rose Garden, newly renovated by the president, to honor Kirk’s memory and to recognize him for his patriotic contributions to the United States of America. Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, was present and emotional at the event, as were many members of the Turning Point USA organization.
The event was purposefully held on Tuesday, October 14, the day that should have been Kirk’s thirty-second birthday.
The president spoke first as Erika Kirk stood by.
“Five weeks ago, our nation was robbed of this extraordinary champion. He was a champion in every way — I got to know him so well,” President Trump said. “It was a horrible, heinous, demonic act of murder. He was assassinated in the prime of his life for boldly speaking the truth, for living his faith, and relentlessly fighting for a better and stronger America. He loved this country, and that’s why this afternoon, it’s my privilege to posthumously award Charles James Kirk our nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”
Created by President Harry Truman in 1945 as the “Medal of Freedom,” the medal was renamed by President John F. Kennedy in 1963 as the “Presidential Medal of Freedom,” and under Executive Order 11085, it can be presented to “any person who has made an especially meritorious contribution to (1) the security or national interests of the United States, or (2) world peace, or (3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
The medal features a white star over a red pentagon that is surrounded by five gold eagles, and in the center of the star, there is a blue circle with 13 more gold stars.
Following the president, Erika Kirk spoke about her husband.
“Today, we’re gathered not only to celebrate Charlie’s birthday, but to honor a truth that he gave his entire life to defend, and that’s freedom. The very existence of the Presidential Medal of Freedom reminds us that the national interest of the United States has always been freedom,” Kirk said.
“Our founders etched it into the preamble of our Constitution, and those words are not relics on parchment; they are a living covenant. The blessings of liberty are not man’s invention, they are God’s endowment. Charlie lived for those blessings, not as abstract words, but as sacred promises,” she continued.
“He used to love to journal about this topic all the time, and with such a heart postured of gratitude, and he believed that liberty was both a right and a responsibility. And he used to say freedom is the ability to do what is right without fear, and that’s how he lived. He was free from fear.”
Kirk founded Turning Point USA, the national student movement focused on empowering young people to “promote the principles of free markets and limited government.” By the time of his death, TPUSA had reached more than 3,000 high school and college campuses nationwide and had accumulated 650,000 lifetime student members, earning the organization the title of “the largest and fastest-growing conservative youth activist organization in America.”
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Kirk himself spent his time organizing TPUSA, gathering talented young people and promoting them, writing books, doing thousands of media appearances, garnering support for President Donald Trump, and perhaps most notably, engaging in respectful debate and dialogue on college campuses. Clips of his debates with liberal college students accumulated millions of views on social media, his social media platforms reached over 100 million people per month, and he was named one of the “top 10 most engaged accounts” in the world.
He is considered the driving force behind the president’s selection of JD Vance as his vice president: Vance himself said “if it weren’t for Charlie Kirk, I would not be vice president of the United States.”
An ideological assassin killed Kirk as he spoke on September 10 at Utah Valley University, and the investigation into the assassination is ongoing. Authorities have identified Tyler Robinson as the killer, a young man who lived with his “transgender partner,” a male attempting to transition to a transgender female. That individual, identified as 22-year-old Lance Twiggs, is reported to be fully cooperating with federal authorities.
In the last moments before he was murdered, Charlie Kirk was answering questions from a student about transgender violence.
“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” asked Hunter Kozak, a Utah Valley University mathematics student.
Charlie Kirk throws hats to the crowd after arriving at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025 in Orem, Utah. (Photo by Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images)
“Too many,” responded the 31-year-old TPUSA founder, who was seated under a small tent in the midst of a large crowd of bystanders. It was only two weeks after the Annunciation school shooting, in which a trans-identifying killer had killed two children and injured many others when he opened fire on a Catholic mass.
The crowd applauded at Kirk’s response, but Kozak pressed on, saying that there had been five trans-identifying mass shooters in recent history.
“Now five is a lot,” Kozak conceded, “I’m gonna give you some credit. Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?”
“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk asked.
At that moment a shot rang out. Kirk’s shooter had fired, fatally hitting the TPUSA founder where he sat.
Kozak, who did not immediately respond to The Daily Wire’s request for comment, has condemned Kirk’s murder in interviews since the tragic event occurred. Simultaneously, he has called Kirk “a bigot” for believing that it is dangerous for trans-identifying people to own guns and said that “Charlie also made the world a worse off place.”
Mrs. Erika Kirk joins U.S. President Donald Trump onstage during the memorial service for her husband at State Farm Stadium on September 21, 2025 in Glendale, Arizona. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
In the weeks since Kirk’s assassination, social media has been flooded with stories of Americans growing closer to their faith, spurred on by Kirk’s witness as a Christian.
“Charlie’s passing marked a turning point for the movement he sparked,” Turning Point’s website shares. “In the weeks that followed, more than 120,000 students reached out seeking to launch new high school and college chapters, determined to carry forward what he built. His passing also sparked a wave of Christian revival that spread far beyond the United States, igniting prayer gatherings, worship events, and renewed faith commitments. In cities across America and in countries around the world, hundreds of vigils and memorials were held in his honor—spontaneous expressions of gratitude for a life that emboldened young people, challenged cultural norms, and called a generation to courage. His influence did not end with his life; it accelerated.”
Additionally, over 200,000 people registered for Turning Point’s memorial honoring Kirk at a massive event held in Phoenix, Arizona, in late September.
That memorial was attended by the top administration officials in Donald Trump’s White House, including the president himself. Vice President JD Vance, Donald Trump Jr., Stephen Miller, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, Susie Wiles, and many other friends of Kirk spoke from the stage to the thousands gathered in person, and online, eulogizing their friend and urging Americans to pick up where Kirk left off.
“My husband, Charlie, he wanted to save young men just like the one who took his life,” an emotional Erika Kirk told the thousands gathered at State Farm Stadium that day.
In a stunning moment, Kirk’s widow tearfully gathered herself before forgiving her husband’s killer, saying: “On the cross, our Savior said, ‘Father, forgive them for they not know what they do.’ That man, that young man, I forgive him. I forgive him, because it was what Christ did, and is what Charlie would do.”
Her words resonated throughout the country, drawing compassion and admiration from many. And at the very end of the memorial, she joined Trump on stage, where the two shared an emotional, vulnerable moment before the crowd, before Erika Kirk signed “I love you,” to the massive image of her husband hanging across the stadium.
“Charlie’s life was a turning point for this country,” she said that day. “It was a miracle. Let that miracle that was Charlie’s life be your turning point as well. Choose prayer, choose courage, choose beauty, choose adventure, choose family. Choose a life of faith. Most importantly, choose Christ.”
