President Donald Trump posthumously awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor to right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk, who was killed last month while speaking at a Utah campus. But mostly, Trump talked about himself.
Speaking outside the Rose Garden on Tuesday, Trump began by reading from prepared remarks about Kirk before presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Trump was joined by Erika Kirk, the wife of the slain pundit.
“Today, we’re here to honor and remember a fearless warrior for liberty,” Trump said. “Beloved leader who galvanized the next generation like nobody I’ve ever seen before. And an American patriot of the deepest conviction. The finest quality and the highest caliber.”
But Trump soon went off script, telling the audience that Kirk didn’t love his enemies.
“I got to know him so well,” Trump said. “He didn’t like losing, and he was able to fight people that were his enemies, and he didn’t necessarily love those enemies so much. And I heard, I heard he loved his enemies, and I said: ‘Wait a minute, is that the same Charlie that I know? I’m not sure,’ but I didn’t want to get into it. But it was a horrible, heinous, demonic act of murder.”
In her own remarks later in the ceremony, Erika Kirk said that her husband did pray for his enemies.
“He did pray for his enemies, which is very hard, but he did,” she said, drawing a laugh from Trump. “He did.”
Trump pointed out that Tuesday’s ceremony would have been Kirk’s 32nd birthday and then commented on Kirk’s appearance.
“He should have been turning 32 years old,” Trump said. “I tell you, when I first met him, he was like 22, and I said, ‘Boy, he’s awfully young, but I thought he was younger than that.’”
Trump then said Kirk looked older for his age.
“He looked a little bit older for his age, but that’s OK,” Trump said. “That’s not good when you’re old, but when you’re young, it’s great. He had the best of all things, but he was special.”
Photo by OLIVIER TOURON/AFP via Getty Images
Later during the ceremony, Trump wondered aloud why Kirk liked him.
“In 2016, he was there right from the beginning,” Trump said. “He liked me, I don’t know. I have no idea why. What the hell was he thinking? He said, ‘You’re gonna win, sir.’”
Trump soon began to ramble about crime in Chicago, where he has sent National Guard troops. He also blasted protesters who have been standing up to Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
“When you see these violent incidents, and they’re holding signs with beautiful wood, beautiful cardboard, and perfect paint job, and they’re all the same,” Trump said. “You know they weren’t made in the basement out of love, they were made by anarchists.”
At one point, police sirens could be heard blaring in the background of Trump’s speech. He called the sound “beautiful.”
“You hear those sirens going off?” Trump asked. “That’s good, that’s a good sound. They either got the bad guy or they’re going to stop the bad guy. You didn’t hear that sound because no one wanted to do anything. Listen to the beauty of that sound, seriously. And those are the real-deal sirens, not politically correct sirens. They’re like three miles away. What a beautiful sound.”