Conservative icon Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated on Wednesday at the age of 31, was asked before he died how he wanted to be remembered.

Kirk, unsurprisingly, pointed to his faith in Jesus Christ.

“How do you wanna be remembered? … [If] everything just goes away [and] you could be associated with one thing, how would you want to be remembered?” Kirk was asked.

“I want to be remembered for courage for my faith,” Kirk responded. “That would be the most important thing. The most important thing is my faith in my life.”

WATCH:

Charlie Kirk on how he wanted to be remembered.

Question: “How would you wanna be remembered?”

Charlie: “I wanna be remembered for courage for my faith. That that would be the most important thing. The most important thing is my faith in my life.” pic.twitter.com/fwBV9UVefc

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 11, 2025

Days before Kirk passed, he posted on X, “Jesus defeated death so you can live.”

Jesus defeated death so you can live.

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) September 6, 2025

The young conservative openly and frequently discussed his Christian faith, and recently launched Turning Point USA Faith, a branch of his massively successful grassroots organization, Turning Point USA, which he founded at the age of 18.

Kirk was tragically shot dead while answering questions at Utah Valley University on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump called the late conservative a “legendary” figure.

“The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,” Trump wrote. “He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family. Charlie, we love you!”

Trump announced on Thursday that Kirk will be posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

Kirk was married to his wife Erika in 2021 and had two young children. The conservative routinely gushed about being married and having kids, and encouraged young people to do the same.

A video of Kirk’s young daughter running up to him for an embrace on Fox & Friends,  just weeks before his death, has gone viral online.

Charlie Kirk con su hija hace unas semanas en Fox News.

Esto me rompe particularmente ahora que tengo una hija.pic.twitter.com/Xv1nCfaFa7

— Emmanuel Rincón (@EmmaRincon) September 10, 2025

State and federal authorities released a joint update on Wednesday night on the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University, saying that two people had been detained for questioning and later released.

In a press release issued by the Utah Department of Public Safety and the FBI, authorities said that George Zinn and Zachariah Qureshi had been taken into custody as suspects and questioned, but law enforcement found “no current ties to the shooting with either of these individuals.” The statement added, “There is an ongoing investigation and manhunt for the shooter.”

“The shooting is believed to be a targeted attack. The shooter is believed to have fired from the roof of a building down to the location of the public event in the student courtyard. Any additional clarifications cannot be provided to protect the integrity of our investigation,” authorities said.

Zinn, a 71-year-old man, is known in the Salt Lake City area for disrupting political events and has a criminal history dating back to the 1980s, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. In 2013, Zinn was charged with threatening to place bombs at the finish line of the Salt Lake City marathon. Zinn agreed to a plea deal in that case and was sentenced to probation. However, after he failed to meet the conditions of his probation, he was ordered to spend a year in jail, with credit for time served, according to the Tribune. Zinn was arrested again in 2019 after a protest in downtown Salt Lake City turned violent.

Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill told the Tribune on Wednesday that Zinn leaned libertarian and would “give me a hard time for being a Dem.” He added that at “almost every political event you can think of, there was always George somewhere in the background, listening.”

The FBI began investigating shortly after Kirk was shot. The two subjects questioned by the FBI were released after FBI Director Kash Patel said earlier on Wednesday that the suspected assassin had been taken into custody. Patel later said, “The subject in custody has been released after an interrogation by law enforcement. Our investigation continues and we will continue to release information in interest of transparency.”

According to officials, the Utah Valley University Police Department had six officers working the Kirk event, which was in addition to Kirk’s security detail. Around 3,000 people were in attendance to listen to Kirk when a gunman fired a single shot from the roof of a building near where Kirk was speaking at approximately 12:20 p.m. local time, according to authorities. Kirk was taken to Timpanogos Regional Hospital, where he was pronounced dead “hours later.”

The assassin is believed to have fired from the Losee Center building, which was at least 200 yards away from where Kirk was speaking in a courtyard on campus. Law enforcement has not released a description of the suspected assassin, other than saying the suspect was “dressed in all dark clothing.”

The FBI urged the public to send in any information about the assassination to a tip line.