Trump Pays Tribute to Charlie Kirk at Memorial Service — Swipes at ‘Radical Left Lunatics’

President Donald Trump told an audience of tens of thousands of people at State Farm Stadium in Arizona that slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk was a “missionary with a noble spirit.”

Trump’s memorial speech followed emotional remarks by Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk. Trump said Charlie Kirk was always humble and treated people of all walks of life well.

Trump told a story about a fourth-grader who asked Charlie to appear on his podcast, “which was probably only watched by the parents of that fourth-grader,” Trump said.

“And Charlie, who was pretty hot at the time to be honest, he agreed, and the boy asked for advice. Charlie replied that ‘the left’ — I call it the radical left — I sometimes called the radical left lunatics. But Charlie did not say that — he called it the left. He was probably right, but I can’t help it. I can help it. So he said the left, ‘radical left.'”

Trump said Charlie always worked harder than anyone else to “never stop fighting for our country.”

“He did this until his dying breath, that is what he was doing. That is what he was doing, think of it. Wow,” Trump said, continuing:

By his own determination and skill Charlie Kirk built Turning Point from its humble beginnings — the beginnings nobody believed could ever end up something like this — Into a great movement and juggernaut of American politics and we have a massive stadium loaded up with people, but he got tremendous crowds before he had this kind of a horrible news, and before we had to hear what happened so terribly.

He delivered more than 250 speeches a year at over 200 colleges and universities. And that was at a time when it was not really vogue to go to colleges and universities. If you were a conservative, it really took great courage. We used to talk and I said, “You know, I think they’re much more conservative than we know.” And he agreed, but it just was not something that happened because the radical left would do very bad things, very dangerous things.

The early part of Trump’s speech struck a mostly somber tone. But as the speech went on, it got more partisan. We’ll have more on that shortly.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!