By Ashley Murray
Kentucky Lantern
President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and several Cabinet officials spoke at a five-hour memorial ceremony Sunday in Arizona for the late conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, whom Republicans are mourning as a friend and crediting as a force behind Trump’s second presidency.
Trump told a packed stadium, “America loved Charlie Kirk.”
“It is agonizing and unthinkable to say goodbye to a patriot whose heart still had so much to give,” Trump said.
The president described the suspected gunman who authorities say targeted Kirk as a “radicalized, cold-blooded monster.”
Trump praised Kirk and said it was the activist’s influence that helped him choose Vance as vice president. Interspersed in his comments about Kirk, Trump aimed insults at