Some called for forgiveness and unity Sunday at Charlie Kirk’s funeral in Arizona. Others called for combat and retribution. But one thing the Republican leaders had in common in their speeches was that the activist’s assassination should be a turning point, the start of a revival for religious conservatives.
Tens of thousands of mourners gathered inside State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., Sunday afternoon. Leaders in the MAGA movement, of which Kirk, 31, was a central part, were in attendance, including President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, a number of Cabinet officials and billionaire tech executive Elon Musk.
Many speakers used their time eulogizing Kirk to also make a renewed argument for American conservatism, with, they argued, Christianity, marriage, having children and open debate at the core. Many speakers invoked the notion of a “revival” and spoke in expressly religious terms, canonizing Kirk, co-founder of the organization Turning Point USA, and describing “a spiritual war,” in the words of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in which Kirk was a fighter.
“The day that Charlie died, the angels wept, but those tears have been turned into fire in our hearts,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said. “And that fire burns with a righteous fury that our enemies cannot comprehend or understand.”
Most, though, focused on Kirk’s legacy as a way to usher in a way to reintroduce and redefine the political right, perhaps a new wave of MAGA.
“The evil murderer who took Charlie from us expected us to have a funeral today, and instead, my friends, we have had a revival in celebration of Charlie Kirk,” Vance said.
“Charlie started a political movement but unleashed a spiritual revival,” Hegseth added.
And Trump compared the gathering to “an old-time revival.”
Kirk was assassinated as he spoke at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10. The alleged gunman, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, has been charged with aggravated murder and obstruction of justice, among others.
Galvanizing supporters and enraging critics with his at times inflammatory takes on a host of issues — including race, gender and Islam — Kirk reached an audience of millions across many platforms as his group grew nationwide to help advance his causes.
Leaders on Sunday focused on his efforts to convert young people to the conservative cause, his outreach on college campuses, his penchant for holding open debates at such venues — which was what he was doing when he was killed — and his religious faith.
“Charlie passionately wanted to reach and save the lost boys of the West, young men who feel like they have no direction, no purpose, no faith and no reason to live,” Kirk’s wife, Erika, said. “The men wasting their lives on distractions, and the men consumed with resentment, anger and hate, Charlie wanted to help them. He wanted them to have a home with Turning Point USA, and when he went onto campus, he was looking to show them a better path and a better life that was right there for the taking. He wanted to show them that.”
Kirk added that her husband “wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life.”
“That young man, I forgive him,” she said. “I forgive him because it was what Christ did and what Charlie would do. The answer is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love, love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”
In his address to mourners, Trump took a different tone than Kirk’s widow.
“He was a missionary with a noble spirit and a great great purpose,” Trump said. “He did not hate his opponents, he wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagree with Charlie. I hate my opponent. And I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Erika. But now maybe Erika can talk to me and the whole group and maybe they can convince me that that’s not right. But I can’t stand my opponent.”
The president’s speech was more political than most who eulogized Kirk. Trump decried “radical-left lunatics” and discussed upcoming administration policy initiatives, including announcing that his administration would hold an announcement tomorrow on its “answer to autism.” He tore into Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, suspended ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and “major losers” who he said welcomed Kirk’s death.
The president also said his administration is probing left-wing activists and groups following Kirk’s death.
“The Department of Justice is also investigating networks of radical-left maniacs who fund, organize, fuel and perpetrate political violence,” Trump said. “And we think we know who many of them are. But law enforcement can only be the beginning of our response to Charlie’s murder.”
“No side in American politics has a monopoly on disturbed or misguided people, but there’s one part of our political community which believes they have a monopoly on truth, goodness and virtue, and concludes they have also a monopoly on power, thought and speech,” Trump said. “Well, that’s not happening anymore. We’ve turned that corner very quickly. Tragically, atrocities of this kind and the kind that we saw in Utah, of all places, are the eventual consequence of that kind of thinking.”
In response to Kirk’s assassination, Trump and allies have promised to go after left-wing groups that they believe fomented the anger that led to his death. So far, the federal investigation into Kirk’s assassination has not found any link between Robinson, the alleged shooter, and left-wing groups, as three people familiar with the investigation told NBC News.
The Justice Department said in a study last year that the number of far-right attacks in this country continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism. That study was recently removed from the department’s website, according to 404 Media.
Prosecutors have said Robinson targeted Kirk because of his “political expression” while his mother told investigators in part “that over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and had started to lean more to the left.”
Though the initial evidence indicates that Robinson acted alone, speakers on Sunday spread responsibility for Kirk’s death beyond Robinson. Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff, decried “our enemies,” who he said are “trying to foment hatred against us.”
“You have no idea the dragon you have awakened,” Miller added. “You have no idea how determined we will be to save this civilization, to save the West, to save this republic, because our children are strong and our grandchildren will be strong, and our children’s children’s children will be strong. And what will you leave behind? Nothing. Nothing to our enemies. You have nothing to give. You have nothing to offer. You have nothing to share but bitterness.”
Kirk had long been a close ally of the president and a key player in the MAGA movement, but his rise was accelerated by a host of factors: the Covid pandemic, President Joe Biden’s term and the growth of his own podcast, all of which came together since 2020.
He also became a more powerful force on the right after making a more expressly religious turn, as NBC News reported last year. After earlier arguing that politics should be advanced through a “secular worldview,” Kirk began to more closely embrace Christian nationalism, saying on a 2022 episode of his podcast that “there is no separation of church and state.” In 2021, he co-founded TPUSA Faith. Turning Point USA’s fundraising exploded and its mission expanded at this time.
Kirk’s religious convictions featured heavily in the speeches Sunday. Vance described Kirk as a “hero to the United States of America” and a “martyr for the Christian faith.” Conservative personality Benny Johnson said Kirk “is a martyr in the true Christian tradition” and asked the gatherers to “raise your hand if Charlie Kirk centered you a little closer to Christ.” Tucker Carlson, the prominent right-wing commentator and podcast host, described Kirk as a “Christian evangelist” who was “bringing the Gospel to the country” and “doing the thing that the people in charge hate most, which is calling for them to repent.”
Hegseth said Kirk “realized, like so many of us have, that this is not a political war, it’s not even a cultural war, it’s a spiritual war, faith and family.”
Others took to highlighting Kirk’s college campus debates and what they saw as his open-minded nature toward those who opposed his views. Donald Trump Jr., who was close with Kirk, said he “embodied something at the very core of our movement: When people disagree with us, we don’t silence them, we don’t destroy them, and we certainly don’t sink to violence.”
“Charlie delighted in his belief that people could be persuaded,” Trump Jr. added. “He believed the way to win hearts was with truth, with courage and with conversation.”
Kirk’s critics had a very different view of him, arguing that his positions alienated large portions of the population and were, at times, toxic and dangerous. Kirk once said Biden “should honestly be put in prison and/or given the death penalty for his crimes against America,” suggested that “every gender-affirming clinic doctor” should face a “Nuremberg-style trial” and called the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. an “awful” person who “said one good thing he actually didn’t believe,” among other remarks.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Kirk “understood that we were not created to isolate ourselves from one another, but to engage.”
“The irony in all this is that what our nation needs, one of the many things it needs,” he added, “is the ability to discuss our differences openly, honestly, peacefully, respectfully.”