President Donald Trump posthumously awarded Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Tuesday, but not before objecting to frequent characterizations of the late political organizer as a pacifist.
Kirk, an influential Republican operative who was celebrated for his youth outreach, was assassinated during an event on a college campus in Utah last month. In the wake of his death, Kirk’s peers (and several of his enemies) rushed to paint the activist as a peaceful believer in the power of debate and the First Amendment. Trump pushed back against the idea during a speech on Tuesday.
“You know, I heard he loved his enemies,” Trump said. “I said, ‘Wait a minute, is that the same Charlie that I know? I’m not so sure.’ But I didn’t want to get into it.”
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