Charlie Kirk honored as ‘martyr’ at memorial rally

What happened

Tens of thousands of people gathered at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, Sunday for a memorial service for slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The speakers included President Donald Trump and many of his administration’s top officials, plus Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, who has assumed leadership of his Turning Point USA organization.

Who said what

The five-hour service “had the feel of a religious revival mixed with a ‘Make America Great Again’ rally,” Reuters said. Many of the speakers “invoked religious warfare” and “extolled” Kirk as a “religious leader of almost biblical stature,” The Washington Post said, and “the crowd rose to its feet in applause” when his widow said she forgave his killer. “I forgive him because it is what Christ did,” Erika Kirk said. “The answer to hate is not hate.”

Trump, whose 45-minute speech closed the event, called the murder suspect a “radicalized, cold-blooded monster” and said that unlike Charlie Kirk, “I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them.” He honored Kirk as a “martyr for American freedom” but “pivoted swiftly to blunt politics,” The New York Times said. As his “speech veered increasingly” into political point-scoring, “hundreds of people started leaving the arena.”

What next?

Trump was “just one of several speakers to use the word ‘revival’” at Kirk’s memorial, The Wall Street Journal said. The who’s who of GOP leaders “appeared hopeful it might unify and fortify a conservative movement that had shown signs of cracking” before Kirk was assassinated.

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