US President Donald Trump has honoured the late Charlie Kirk with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honour.
Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at a Utah college campus for Turning Point USA, the conservative activist group he founded when he was just 18.
Trump presented the award to Kirk’s widow, Erika, during a ceremony at a refurbished Rose Garden.
Charlie Kirk was a strong supporter of Trump and has been credited with leading many young people into conservative politics and into traditional Christian lifestyles.
Speaking at the memorial, Trump described Kirk as “irreplaceable” and as a “fearless warrior for liberty”.
The president also took the opportunity to denounce left wing political violence and terrorism.
“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," he said.
“They have the devil’s ideology and they’re failing, and they know it, they feel it, and they become violent.”
The prime suspect in the killing of Kirk reportedly inscribed far-left slogans on some of his bullets.
Other incidents of concern include a deadly shooting attack at an ICE facility and two attempted assassinations of the president himself. For years there have been calls for far-left group Antifa to be designated as a terrorist threat for the many violent incidents its members have been involved in.
Erika Kirk said that Charlie may well have run for president had his life not been cut short. After receiving the award on her husband’s behalf, she said, “God began a mighty work through my husband and I intend to see it through. And 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.”
Also present at the ceremony where members of the Trump administration and conservative media stars like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity.
