GLENDALE, Ariz. — Erika Kirk took a few moments before stepping up to the podium. She closed her eyes as the whole stadium cheered and applauded for her.
She whispered an “I love you” to her late husband, Charlie Kirk, at the beginning and while concluding her remarks.
A five-hour-long memorial for Kirk was held Sunday at State Farm Stadium, featuring both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, as well as several Cabinet members and fellow conservative activists.
The most surprising moment on Sunday came from Erika Kirk.
Growing emotional amid her remarks, she proclaimed that she forgives the man who killed her husband. “I forgive him because it is what Christ did. It’s what Charlie would do,” Kirk said.
Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old who is accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk, was taken into custody in Washington County, Utah, and appeared before a judge last week.
Tens of thousands of Kirk’s fans, dressed in their Sunday best in red, white and blue colors, packed the stadium to pay tribute to the late conservative activist, who was assassinated on Sept. 10, at Utah Valley University, his first stop on his fall “American Comeback Tour.”
Tens of thousands more stood outside the stadium or watched in a nearby venue.
Erika Kirk shared a conversation she had with Usha Vance, the second lady, when bringing her husband’s body from Utah back to Arizona, Kirk’s home.
“I held her hand and I told her honestly, ‘I do not know how I am going to get through this,” said Kirk. “She said that, ‘You know when you’re on an airplane with your kids. It’s the last 15 minutes of the flight. Things are crazy. Kids are not cooperating. Toys are flying everywhere and everyone’s screaming. But it’s the last 15 minutes.’”
Vance told her that once she got through that, she will get through the next 15 minutes, and then the next. Kirk said the second lady’s words were what she needed in her time of grief.
“We didn’t see violence, we didn’t see rioting, we didn’t see revolution. Instead, we saw what my husband always prayed for: We saw revival.”
“One of the things he wrote in his journal was this: ‘Every time you make a decision, it puts a mark on your soul.’” she said and asked people to “water the seeds of their faith.”
Kirk revealed the secret for their strong marriage was love notes. Charlie Kirk wrote his wife a note every Saturday. He would end the note with: “Please let me know how I can better serve you as a husband,” she said, while wiping away tears from her eyes.
Erika Kirk challenged men in the audience to be the spiritual head of their families and women to be virtuous.
President Trump addresses mourners
The memorial merged politics and faith as religious leaders and musicians and conservative activists and politicians took the stage.
Musician Lee Greenwood introduced President Trump to the stage with a song, “God Bless the USA.” It earned Greenwood a hug and several compliments from the president.
“NONE of us will ever forget Charlie Kirk, and neither now will history,” said Trump and the crowd roared. “While Charlie has been reunited with his Creator in heaven, his voice will echo through generations.”
“Today America is a nation in grief, a nation in shock, a nation in mourning,” Trump added.
The president also said there was a key difference between himself and the Kirks. Where Erika Kirk forgave the killer of her husband, and Charlie Kirk gave his opponents the mic, Trump said, “I can’t stand my opponents,” with a laugh.
Trump also reiterated that he is awarding Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Trump called Erika Kirk to the stage after giving his remarks. She gave him a tight hug as they faced the audience for a final blessing to Kirk.
Nearly all the speakers, and there were more than a dozen, expressed their love for Erika Kirk and asked voters to build on what Kirk started by leaning on their faith.
The memorial began with video clips of Kirk sharing sweet moments with his wife and his two children as well as his last moments before he was shot played on the two screens beside the stage.
Many speakers took an opportunity to make a political point, like Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who talked about the censorship on college campuses, and Kirk’s constant challenges to these institutions.
Rubio recognized the “special and direct impact (Kirk had) on men in this country.” War Department Secretary Pete Hegseth said he recently learned that the word “Kirk” in German meant church. “So this Sunday morning, I’d like to think we are all in Charlie’s church,” Hegseth said.
While Hegseth spoke, C-SPAN panned the camera to Trump sitting with Elon Musk in a suite in the arena. The two shared a handshake. It’s worth noting the two fell apart over Musk’s criticism of the “Big Beautiful Bill” earlier this year.
Kirk “thought that conversation was the only way to heal our country,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “and this was important during a technological age.”
Blaming social media algorithms for “tribalism” and “division,” Kennedy said Kirk saw that the “only way to overcome that biological impulse was with a spiritual fire and with a developing community.”
Vice President Vance said that although the world tried to silence Kirk, today, “we speak with Charlie louder than ever.”
“Our whole administration is here, not because we love Charlie,” Vance said. “But because we know we wouldn’t be here without him.”
Vance did not dive into politics except to make calls for action.
He shared that he sometimes felt “a little uncomfortable talking about my faith in public.”
“I have talked more about Jesus Christ in the past two weeks than I have my entire life,” the vice president added. The entire stadium rose up.
The White House’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and director of the presidential personnel office Sergio Gor, as well as chief of staff Susie Wiles gave sobering addresses to keep fighting the good fight. But commentator Tucker Carlson took on a more lighthearted tone at first when he took the stage, joking about the tears in Wiles’ eyes, an image he’s never seen.
He then reminded the audience that Kirk was fearless because of his ability to forgive and believe in the greater power.
“The presence of Jesus is a reminder of what we have known for 2,000 years, which is any attempt to extinguish the light causes it to burn brighter,” he said.
Donald Trump Jr., too, began with humor. He joked his dad, President Trump has called him several times and mimicked the president saying the younger Trump was getting too aggressive on social media.
Charlie Kirk’s inner circle gives tribute
A little after 11 a.m., bagpipe players took the stage as a portrait of Kirk was unveiled on stage.
At the beginning of the memorial, Kirk’s pastor, Rob McCoy, gave remarks, honoring his relationship with Kirk and giving Turning Point USA employees hope.
“Everyone is really worried that Turning Point is not going to be successful,” said Pastor McCoy. “Those of you who are negative, without Charlie Kirk’s presence, they pulled off the largest event in Turning Point history.”
Pastor McCoy also reflected on Kirk’s inner ambitions.
“Charlie looked at politics as an on-ramp to Jesus,” the pastor said. As he spoke, at 11:32, Turning Point USA messaged registered attendees that the stadium still has seats available until they reach capacity.
High level Turning Point USA employees like Mikey McCoy, who served as the chief of staff to Kirk, and Tyler Bowyer, the chief operating officer of Turning Point Action, spoke after Pastor McCoy.
“He always said to me, ‘If we can just figure out how to bring the Holy Spirit into a Trump Rally,’” Bowyer said, before assessing that Kirk managed to make it happen.
Bowyer revealed messages where Kirk sent photos of his vision; stadium-sized events. This dream has been realized, Bowyer said.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee in a post on X on Sunday morning wrote, “I’m in Arizona to celebrate the life of Charlie Kirk—a true friend who made the world a better place."
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox was also in attendance. He posted a scripture on X ahead of the memorial.
Speakers Benny Johnson, political commentator, Ben Carson, former U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the first Trump administration, Jack Posobiec, a political activist, and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., also gave remarks.
Luna compared Kirk’s legacy to that of founding father George Washington, late President John F. Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. before asking attendees if they will rise to the challenge, as Kirk did.
Frank Turek, who was Kirk’s mentor, said he ran toward Kirk the moment the shot rang out. “His team did everything they were supposed to do,” he said. Turek said he was “perched on the back seat” in the car. One of his colleagues held his hand, the other held his feet.
“But Charlie was already gone,” he said. Turek said he learned Kirk did not feel pain as he died.
Long lines, high emotions
As attendees entered the stadium, they found a travel size pack of tissues and signs with photos of Kirk laid out on the floor seats. One of the signs quoted Isaiah 6:8: “Here I am Lord, send me,” another said “Never surrender” with a photo of Kirk on it. American flags were draped on both sides of the stage.
Gospel performances began promptly at 8 a.m, an hour after the doors opened.
Ahead of the programming, Dan Beazely, a Michigan resident who traveled to Arizona following the assassination, circled the stadium, wheeling a 10-foot cross around with him. He offered prayers at the center of the stadium.
Beazely has shown up to the vigils outside Turning Point USA headquarters and Arizona State University in over 100 degree heat for one reason: “So that this cross could stand above all the darkness and shine a light,” he said last week, as the Deseret News reported. Reporters, photographers and attendees swarmed him to get a photo of the man with the cross.
Attendees waited for hours, first in the parking lot, which opened at 5 a.m., then in line to get through the TSA-level security lines and to their seats at the stadium that can accommodate more than 60,000 people. Barely 100 seats available besides the stage.
Because of the strict no bag policy, attendees did not carry flowers or any other items to honor Kirk.
Many people flew in to attend the funeral. Rochelle Henshaw, who has served as an alternate delegate for the Washington state Republican Party, took a three-hour flight with her family to be there.
Before speaking to the Deseret News, she was admiring a photo of Kirk displayed on an easel. TPUSA put up other pictures of Kirk and his family all around the stadium.
She got in line for the memorial event at midnight on Saturday. She said it wouldn’t have mattered if she didn’t get inside.
“We just want to pay our respects,” she told me as performers played gospel music on stage three hours before the programming began.
Henshaw took the dress code seriously, wearing red, white and blue braids, a red denim jacket, a blue sequined top and pants with the American flag printed on them.
Another man, Maurice Symonette, or “Michael the Black Man,” known for holding the “Blacks for Trump” sign at the president’s rallies, flew in from Miami to attend one of the largest memorials in U.S. history.
When asked if he got in line right after landing in Arizona at 8 p.m. Saturday night, Symonette said, “I started the line,” while laughing.
Even though he said he felt tired, he said he needed to be there.
Symonette wore a “Blacks for Trump” shirt and a sign on his pocket read, “Charlie Kirk is not racist.” As he spoke with the Deseret News, three people came up to him and complimented his shirt.
“I already knew he wasn’t racist because I’ve met him 100 times,” Symonette said.
High security at Charlie Kirk memorial
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security designated Kirk’s celebration of life a rating typically reserved for events like the Super Bowl or the Boston Marathon, ABC News reported.
The Secret Service worked with local authorities in Phoenix and Glendale as well as state and federal partners days ahead of the memorial.
Security is tight for many reasons. For starters, the scale of the event and the long list of VIPs attending requires as many hands on deck as possible.
The heightened political tension also played a role.
Earlier this week, Phoenix police’s bomb squad responded to calls of a suspicious bag spotted by the TPUSA headquarters, which has transformed into a memorial for Kirk. In another instance last weekend, a 22-year-old man, wearing the same T-shirt as the suspect who shot Kirk, stomped over the memorial. He was detained by the police.
Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego canceled his town halls in Tucson and Yuma after receiving an increased number of threatening calls, texts and posts. He did not attribute it to the recent tragedy, as the Arizona Republic reported.