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Watch a livestream of the memorial service in the video player above beginning at 2 p.m. ET.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recalled that one of the first conversations he had with Charlie Kirk in July 2021 was about the physical risks they take in their positions.
“He asked me if I was scared of dying,” RFK Jr. said. “And I said to him, ‘There’s a lot of worse things than death, and one of those things is if we lost our constitutional right in this country and that our children were raised as slaves.'”
The health secretary said he told Kirk that “sometimes the best consolation we can hope for is that we get to die with our boots on.”
“Charlie died with his boots on, and he died to make sure that we didn’t have to undergo those fates that are worse than death.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard called to protect the right to free speech at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, saying that “his words were his weapons.”
“Charlie lived what our founders envisioned, freedom, the right to speak even when we disagree,” Gabbard said.
“I may not agree with what you say but I will fight to defend to the very death of my very life your right to speak,” she said. “Free speech is a foundation to our democratic republic. We must protect it at all costs because without it we’ll be lost. Charlie knew this.”
Media personality Tucker Carlson said Charlie Kirk’s religious belief was the reason that he was fearless until the end.
“To his last moment, he was unafraid. He was not defensive and there was no hate in his heart,” Carlson said.
Sergio Gor, the director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, described Charlie Kirk as one of his best friends, recalling how the 31-year-old would text him a daily Bible verse in the morning.
“Charlie was more than an activist,” Gor said. “Charlie was a modern-day disciple who preached about the greatness of America, not just across our land but around the globe.”
Gor said Kirk was President Trump’s biggest supporter.
“He embodied the MAGA warrior,” Gor said. “When the president had an idea, no matter how big it was, Charlie was willing to make it happen.”
Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida began her memorial speech by saying she would not be in Congress without Charlie Kirk.
Luna said she decided against going to medical school to become the director of Hispanic outreach for Turning Point USA in 2018 because she was inspired by Kirk’s patriotism.
“He didn’t just speak of patriotism. He lived it,” she said. “Giving everything to ignite a movement that turned the tide for conservatism, empowering young voices to challenge the status quo and to secure a brighter future for America.”
“If one man can awaken a generation and save a nation, imagine what ten thousand can do,” Luna said. “And we are all Charlie Kirk now, and his legacy has just begun.”
The 63,400-seat State Farm Stadium in Arizona filled up Sunday with people dressed in red, white and blue, as organizers for the Charlie Kirk memorial suggested.
Speaking at Kirk’s memorial, former Turning Point USA COO Tyler Bowyer recalled meeting Kirk in 2014, remembering the conservative activist as “just a kid” who “shared a vision of what the conservative movement should be.”
“When Charlie turned 21, he didn’t have a home. Turning Point USA was in its first year of raising real money,” Bowyer said. “He was rarely home in Chicago. He lived on a plane and zipped back and forth as Turning Point USA became his life.”
Bowyer said he was the person who convinced Kirk to move to Arizona. That’s where Kirk met his wife Erika, who Bowyer said wanted to help out at the first Trump rally in 2015.
“I wanted to hire her. I only had one problem, Charlie Kirk wanted to date her,” Bowyer told the crowd. “They immediately fell in love and I lost an employee. But now she’s my boss.”
The board of Turning Point USA named Erika Kirk as CEO last week. She is also serving as the chair of the board.
President Trump arrived in Glendale, Arizona, shortly after 3 p.m. ET, or 12 p.m. local time. Mr. Trump is scheduled to speak in about two hours at the service.
Mr. Trump was traveling on Air Force One with Vice President JD Vance.
Thousands of people packed into Arizona’s State Farm Stadium hours before the Charlie Kirk memorial. CBS News reporters spoke with some of the attendees.
Rachelle Truong, of Southern California, told CBS News she drove four and a half hours to attend.
“We drove here last night. We got in about 1 o’clock in the morning and woke up at three to be here,” she said.
Meanwhile, Alecia Grantham flew in Saturday from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
“There wasn’t an option to stay home and sit back and watch,” she said. “It was, come out, show my support. I really wanted to be here.”
Her significant other, she said, stayed home because it was duck-hunting season but would be watching on TV.
“I had to come. I had to make it. You have to take action. You have to be here and celebrate,” Grantham said.
— Lucia Suarez Sang, Aaron Navarro
Mr. Trump told reporters that it’s a “very tough day” as he departed the White House on his way to Glendale, Arizona Sunday morning for Kirk’s memorial service.
“We’re going to celebrate the life of a great man today,” the president said, adding, “that something like this could have happened is not even believable.”
Mr. Trump said of Kirk’s wife and family that he plans to continue to “give them my love.”
“There’s nothing much you can say,” the president said. “You talk about the great things he’s done. I mean, he’s been amazing — had a tremendous influence for a young man that was… did a great job. He did a tremendous job.”
Mr. Trump said Kirk “had a hold on youth because they loved him, they respected him.”
In an interview with The New York Times that was published Sunday, Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika Kirk, said that when she arrived at the Utah hospital after he was shot, she was warned against seeing his body. But, she said she told officials, “I want to see what they did to my husband.”
“His eyes were semi-open,” Kirk told the Times. “And he had this knowing, Mona Lisa-like half-smile. Like he’d died happy. Like Jesus rescued him. The bullet came, he blinked, and he was in heaven.”
She said she had not kissed him before he left that morning, and she kissed him then.
Erika Kirk told the Times about how she and Charlie met and their relationship.
“I’m not saying he was perfect, by any means,” she said. “But I knew my expectations and role, and he knew his. I wasn’t going to be the nagging wife who he wouldn’t want to come home to. I wanted to create a sacred landing space for him. And I think that’s why he was always eager to come home.”
Erika Kirk also said she did not want to be the one who decided if the alleged shooter got the death penalty.
“I’ll be honest. I told our lawyer, I want the government to decide this. I do not want that man’s blood on my ledger,” she said. “Because when I get to heaven, and Jesus is like: ‘Uh, eye for an eye? Is that how we do it?’ And that keeps me from being in heaven, from being with Charlie?”
The memorial service for Charlie Kirk is taking place at State Farm Stadium — normally home to the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals. The stadium, which is located in Glendale, near Phoenix, can seat more than 63,000 people.
But police are anticipating that more than 100,000 people may turn out, so Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, also reserved the venue next door, the Desert Diamond Arena, for overflow. Desert Diamond seats about 18,000.
Organizers said there would be tight security for the event, with “TSA-level screening” for the crowd.
Federal authorities have designated the memorial service as a Special Event Assessment Rating (SEAR) Level 1 event, a senior Department of Homeland Security official said. That designation is used for “significant events with national and/or international importance that require extensive federal interagency support,” like the Super Bowl.
Read more here.
By Joe Walsh, Nicole Sganga
President Trump and Vice President JD Vance are both scheduled to speak at the service for Charlie Krik, as is his widow, Erika Kirk.
Other speakers include:
Additional speakers are also expected to be announced.
One of the marquee speakers at the memorial will be Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, who has taken on leadership of Turning Point USA following his death.
The couple married in 2021 and had two young children.
Erika Kirk grew up in the Phoenix area and won Miss Arizona USA in 2012. She attended Arizona State University, earned a juris master degree from Liberty University and is pursuing her doctorate there in biblical studies.
She was a frequent presence at Turning Point USA events, where she spoke about politics, religion and her conservative views on family and marriage. She also founded a “faith-based clothing line” called PROCLAIM and a ministry called BIBLEin365.
During an appearance on “The Charlie Kirk Show” earlier this year, Erika Kirk said she was more conservative than her husband — and he agreed.
In her first public remarks after his death last week, she said “the movement my husband built will not die.”
On Thursday, the board of Turning Point USA announced it had unanimously selected her as its new CEO and board chair.
Charlie Kirk was the leader of Turning Point USA, a group for young conservatives that he co-founded in 2012, at the age of 18. A native of the Chicago area, Kirk briefly attended community college but dropped out to pursue political activism full-time.
He was an outspoken and ubiquitous presence in politics, especially for the younger set. He hosted a daily talk radio show and podcast, spread his message on social media and visited scores of college campuses every year, where he was known for hosting rapid-fire debates with left-leaning students.
Kirk frequently drew controversy for his views. He supported Mr. Trump’s false claims of voter fraud after the 2020 election, and his group maintained a “Professor Watchlist” of college instructors accused of spreading “leftist propaganda.”
He espoused anti-trans rhetoric and amplified the “Great Replacement” conspiracy, the claim that there’s a plot to replace White people with minorities.
Turning Point USA, a nonprofit, says it has chapters at thousands of high schools and colleges, and the group’s political arm, Turning Point Action, engages in grassroots canvassing.
Kirk’s support for President Trump dates back to his first campaign in 2016, and he remained allied with Mr. Trump after he left office under a cloud of controversy following the Capitol riot in January 2021.
In the 2024 presidential race, Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, was widely credited with helping to energize and mobilize young conservative voters for Mr. Trump.
Kirk also grew close with Donald Trump Jr. after serving as an aide in the 2016 campaign.
“Charlie wasn’t just a friend — he was like a little brother to me,” Trump Jr. wrote on X.
Vice President JD Vance has credited Kirk with introducing him to Donald Trump Jr. before Vance ran for Senate in 2022, and with advocating “in public and private” for the president to choose Vance as his running mate last year.
Following Kirk’s assassination, Vance accompanied Kirk’s casket as it was flown from Utah to Arizona aboard the vice president’s plane, Air Force Two.
Nicole Sganga contributed to this report.
Joe Walsh is a senior editor for digital politics at CBS News. Joe previously covered breaking news for Forbes and local news in Boston.
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