Trump to headline Charlie Kirk memorial service in Arizona

GLENDALE, Arizona: Thousands of mourners dressed in red, white and blue made their way through security to attend a Sunday (Sep 21) memorial service for Charlie Kirk at an Arizona football stadium, where President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other top Republicans will pay tribute to the assassinated right-wing activist.

Christian rock music blared through loudspeakers and pictures of Kirk were set on easels throughout the walkways of the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, which has a capacity of more than 63,000.

Crowds of people, many dressed in their Sunday best, had arrived before dawn to get inside to mourn Kirk, who was killed onstage in Utah on Sep 10 as he debated with college students. Traffic jammed the surrounding roads, and overflow space was set up at another arena nearby.

Trump, speaking to reporters before flying to Arizona, said he hoped the service would be "a time of healing" and spoke of his young political ally's influence, crediting him for building support for Republicans through his conservative student activist group, Turning Point USA.

"He did a tremendous job, and he had a hold on youth because they loved him," Trump said. "If you go back 10 years, those colleges were dangerous places for conservatives and now they're hot. They're very hot, just like this country is hot."

Security was extremely tight, given attendance by Trump and several members of his cabinet, as well as the ongoing political turmoil in the aftermath of Kirk's death.

People fanned each other in the heat as they waited to shuffle through metal detectors. An older man dropped to the ground and was carried out of the line to get help. Occasional arguments broke out over line-jumpers: someone yelled "liberals!" at a group that tried to move to the front.

Large American flags hung on both sides of the main stage, which was decorated in maroon and gold. Giant screens showed photographs of Kirk, including one in which he is leaning in to kiss his wife, Erika, who was elected as Turning Point’s chief executive last week.

Kirk, 31, was killed with a single bullet as he answered an audience member's question at a campus event in Utah organised by Turning Point. A 22-year-old technical college student has been charged with Kirk's murder, and investigators say he told his romantic partner in text messages that he had killed Kirk because he had "enough of his hate."

ANGER, CALLS FOR CALM

The killing has raised fears about the growing frequency of US political violence across the ideological spectrum, while also deepening partisan divides. Trump has cited the murder in escalating his calls for a crackdown on his political opponents, including left-wing organizations that he has blamed for the shooting even though authorities have said the gunman acted alone.

The firestorm over Kirk’s assassination only intensified last week, when Disney’s ABC network abruptly pulled late-night talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel off the air after conservatives expressed outrage over remarks he made about the killing on Monday. Hours earlier, Trump’s head of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, threatened to use his agency to punish the network over Kimmel’s comments.

Kimmel’s suspension has drawn objections from civil rights groups, Democrats and television and film writers, who say the Trump administration is using Kirk’s death as a pretext to stifle critical media in violation of the US Constitution’s free-speech protections.

The roster of speakers at Sunday’s service, titled “Building a Legacy: Remembering Charlie Kirk,” demonstrates Kirk’s influence as the leader of the country’s biggest conservative youth organisation.

In addition to Trump and Vance, who was friends with Kirk, senior administration officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy Jr will address the crowd.

In his remarks, Trump was expected to cast Kirk as a martyr for the conservative movement and highlight his legacy as a cultural and political force. He was also expected to use the moment to again draw a line between Kirk’s death and what he calls left-wing extremism.

Kirk built a massive following through his savvy use of social media, radio shows and campus tours, when he often invited skeptical students to debate him, and was credited with mobilizing young voters to Trump’s cause in 2024.

Ken Skinner, 61, and his wife, with whom he runs a home daycare, drove nearly six hours from San Diego to attend the memorial; it took hours to get in. He said he had tuned in to the livestream of Kirk speaking at the Utah college, and watched in horror as he was shot.

"I wish I didn’t see it, but I did," he said. "The devil came out in me. I was mad, just looking for someone to blame. But coming here, being with like-minded people, has helped."

Skinner said he hoped that Trump, whom he has voted for in three elections, "calms down the rhetoric and stops pointing fingers."