Updated September 11, 2025 at 10:23 AM CDT
President Trump plans to posthumously award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's top civilian honor, to Charlie Kirk, the MAGA influencer and close Trump ally killed Wednesday in a targeted attack on a college campus in Utah.
"We miss him greatly, yet, I have no doubt that Charlie's voice and the courage he put into the hearts of countless people, especially young people, will live on," Trump said, speaking at an event at the Pentagon commemorating the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
On Wednesday night in a video message from the Oval Office hours after Kirk was killed, Trump praised Kirk, who he has credited for helping him win the 2024 election, for his activism. He then said what happened to Kirk is a consequence of people demonizing those they disagree with "in the most hateful and despicable way possible," and turned his ire to the political left.
"Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives. Tonight, I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died," Trump said.
A suspect in the shooting had not been named and remains at large.
President Trump shares a message on the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 11, 2025
“I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived & died. The values of free speech, citizenship, the rule of law & the patriotic devotion & love of God.” pic.twitter.com/3fBSgs4Zxa
"For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now," Trump said.
Trump said his administration would find "those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials and everyone else who brings order to our country."
Trump drew a throughline from the assassination attempt at his campaign rally last year to the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the 2017 shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise at a congressional baseball practice.
Trump did not include any examples of political violence against Democrats, such as the June attack in Minnesota that killed a state lawmaker and left another wounded or the 2022 hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She wasn't home at the time, but was the intended target.
Trump paid tribute to Kirk's work with young Americans and asked Americans to commit to "free speech, citizenship, the rule of law and the patriotic devotion and love of God," values he said that Kirk espoused, calling him a "martyr for truth and freedom."
Back in 2017, early in his first term, Trump approached the attack on Scalise with far more political restraint, delivering a two-minute speech that did not mention the political affiliation of the attacker. The shooter, who was killed by police, had been a Bernie Sanders supporter.
"We can all agree that we are blessed to be Americans," Trump said after the 2017 shooting. "We are strongest when we are unified and when we work for the common good."
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