Charlie

PREVIOUSLY: Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr. recalled Charlie Kirk as a champion for free speech.

“He understood that the free flow of information was the soil, the water, the sunlight for democracy,” Kennedy said. “He understood democracy’s great advantage was that our policies were former by ideas that had triumphed in a marketplace of debate and conversation.”

“He thought that conversation was the only way to heal our country, and this was important, particularly important during the technological age when we are all hooked into social algorithms that are hacked into the reptilian cores of our brain and amplify our impulses for tribalism and for division,” Kennedy said. “He felt the only way to overcome that biological impulse was with a spiritual fire and with developing community, and the only way to develop community was through conversation. And so he always gave the biggest microphone to the people who were most passionately aligned against him, because he believed that we need to talk to each other and that we needed to be able to say what we mean, without saying it mean.”

Earlier this week, Kennedy said that Kirk was the “primary architect” of his joining Donald Trump’s presidential campaign last fall. Kennedy abandoned his presidential bid and endorsed Trump.

In the aftermath of Kirk’s death, Trump and members of his administration have sought to crack down on critics. Trump filed a $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times, while his FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, threatened ABC stations because of a remark that Jimmy Kimmel made on his show about the suspect in Kirk’s killing. ABC has pulled Kimmel’s show off the air indefinitely.

When he was killed, Kirk had been appearing on a college tour at Utah Valley University, and was shot as he was in the midst of a debate exchange over the issue of transgender individuals involved in mass shootings.

PREVIOUSLY: Stephen Miller, the top adviser to President Donald Trump, gave a fiery speech in which he cast those carrying on Charlie Kirk’s legacy as warriors fighting evil.

“The day that Charlie died, the angels wept, but those tears had been turned into fire in our hearts, and that fire burns with a righteous fury that our enemies cannot comprehend or understand.”

He said that when he sees Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, “I am reminded of a famous expression. ‘The storm whispers to the warrior that you cannot withstand my strength, and the warrior whispers back, ‘I am the storm.’ Erika is the storm. We are the storm. And our enemies cannot comprehend our strength, our determination, our resolve, our passion.”

He added, “The cannot conceive of the army that they have arisen in all of us because we stand for what is good, what is virtuous, what is novle. And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us, what do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You have wickeness. You are jealousy. You are envy. You are hatred.”

Miller, like some of the other speakers, also seemed to blame Kirk’s assassination on something amorphous, although Trump has cast blame on the “radical left.”

“You thought you could kill Charlie Kirk. You have made him a mortal. You have immortalized Charlie Kirk, and now millions will carry on his legacy,” Miller said.

Kirk, 31, was assassinated on Sept. 10 as he spoke at an outdoor event on the campus of Utah Valley University. Tyler Robinson, 22, has been charged with aggravated murder, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Authorities pointed to evidence that Robinson got more political to the left fairly recently, but they have so far not announced any evidence of involvement by other individuals or outside groups.

PREVIOUSLY: Speakers at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service have shared a similar theme to the tens of thousands in the crowd at State Farm Stadium: Carry on Charlie Kirk’s legacy.

“You cannot be the land of the free if you are not the home of the brave,” said Ben Carson, the 2016 presidential candidate and former secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Jack Posobiec, the right wing political activist and friend of Kirk’s, held up a rosary and said to the crowd, “No more. We are done with all of it and we will fight.”

At points, the memorial took on the tone of a religious revival, with speakers pointing out that Kirk was more than a political influencer but a figure who was trying to counter a secularism.

Posobiec said, “We will find that western civilization was changed by Charlie’s sacrifice, by returning people to an almighty God.”

Benny Johnson, the podcaster, called Kirk a “martyr” in the “true Christian tradition.”

 “If you take down a tyrant, his power goes away. If you cut down a martyr, his power grows,” Johnson said. Johnson said that the apostle Paul said that “rulers wield the sword for the protection of good men and for the terror of evil men. May we pray that our rulers here … wield the sword for the terror of evil men in our nation, in Charlie’s memory.”

PREVIOUSLY: President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and a host of administration figures were due to speak at a memorial to Charlie Kirk, the conservative influencer whose assassination been met with condemnation of political violence but a new debate over freedom of speech.

Tens of thousands were gathered at State Farm Stadium, which can seat more than 63,000 people.

In additional to members of the Trump administration, among those spotted was Elon Musk, who had a very public falling out with the president in May. Also scheduled to speak was Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, who will now lead the group that he co-founded, Turning Point USA.

The memorial stands to be a mixture of a somber and religious gathering, with moments of prayer, and a rally to continue his legacy, as those in the crowd had signs that read, “This is our Turning Point.”

As bagpipers opened the service to Amazing Grace, Fox News has been providing the most comprehensive coverage among the major news networks, while CNN has had an extensive focus on the event, while MSNBC has been providing reports from Arizona. Newsmax also has been carrying the memorial with correspondents and anchors inside and outside the stadium.

Interestingly, for all the FCC talk of late about probes over broadcast network content, ABC, NBC, CBS and, most surprisingly, Fox were not covering the Kirk memorial Sunday – at least on the West Coast. Close to the same time zone of the Glendale, AZ-held event, CBS had informericals on Golf Resorts and Personal Data, and NBC had the 2025 World Athletics Championships from Tokyo. Leading into the WNBA playoffs and the Indiana Fever playing the Las Vegas Aces, ABC had “Paid Programming at 11 am PT,” while Fox went for the big NFL numbers with the LA Rams clashing with current Super Bowl champs the Philadelphia Eagles in the City of Brotherly Love.  

The broadcast networks have been carrying the memorial service on their streaming channels, as have other outlets like C-SPAN.

Kirk, 31, was assassinated on Sept. 10 as he spoke at an outdoor event on the campus of Utah Valley University. Tyler Robinson, 22, has been charged with aggravated murder, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.