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Trump awards posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom to Charlie Kirk

<i>Clipped From Video via CNN Newsource</i><br/>

By CNN Newsource

Published October 14, 2025 5:26 pm

By Kit Maher, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday posthumously awarded Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, saying he was entering the late conservative activist’s name “into the roster of true American heroes.”

Erika Kirk, Kirk’s widow and now the CEO of Turning Point USA, accepted the award on her husband’s behalf at the Rose Garden ceremony. Introducing the award, a military aide announced that the US honors Kirk as “a martyr for truth and freedom.”

Trump, who landed at the White House around 3 a.m. Tuesday after traveling to the Middle East, said, “I was going to call Erika and say, ‘Erica, could you maybe move it to Friday?’” But Trump said it was a “definite” to return in time for the ceremony Tuesday, which would have been Kirk’s 32nd birthday.

Turning to Trump after accepting the award, Erika Kirk said, “Thank you, Mr. President, for honoring my husband in such a profound and meaningful way, and thank you for making this event a priority with amid the peace process in the Middle East.”

It has been just over a month since Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while debating with students on his “America Comeback Tour” at Utah Valley University.

“He was assassinated in the prime of his life for boldly speaking the truth,” Trump said Tuesday, calling the assassination “a horrible, heinous, demonic act of murder.”

Vice President JD Vance, second lady Usha Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, FBI Director Kash Patel and several other Cabinet members were in attendance. Vance, who was a close friend of Kirk’s, sat in the front row, and Erika Kirk thanked the vice president and his wife, who flew to Salt Lake City to transport Kirk’s remains on Air Force Two.

Some Fox News hosts, former and present, also attended, including Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. Other conservative online personalities were seen in the Rose Garden, including Jack Posobiec and Benny Johnson.

During his remarks, Trump credited Kirk with helping him win and mobilize young voters to get to the polls, joking that without him, former Vice President Kamala Harris might have been in the White House rather than him.

Trump mused that more political violence comes from the Democratic side of the aisle and laid blame on “far-left radicals,” who he said have the “devil’s ideology.”

“Especially in the wake of Charlie’s assassination, our country must have absolutely no tolerance for this radical left, violence, extremism and terror,” the president said.

Trump veered off topic at points, including speaking about his efforts to crack down on crime through federal interference in Democratic-led cities.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, is presented to people who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States,” world peace, or “other significant public or private endeavors.”

Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 24 people during his first term, including posthumously to Babe Ruth, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Elvis Presley.

Since the start of his second term, Trump announced that he would also award the Medal of Freedom to former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani and former Housing and Urban and Development Secretary Ben Carson.