President Donald Trump and top Republicans mourned Charlie Kirk on Sunday and galvanized young conservatives at the memorial service ahead of next year’s crucial midterm elections.

Held in a packed football stadium with the highest level of security, Republican officials paid homage to the 31-year-old activist, his deep Christian faith and his young family — while leaning on the occasion to energize the same populist voters who helped propel Trump to his second term in the White House.

“Charlie’s murder was not just an attack on one man or one movement. It was an attack on our entire nation,” Trump said, calling him a “martyr.”

“It was an assault on our most sacred liberties and God-given rights. The gun was pointed at him, but the bullet was aimed at all of us.”

Trump tried to summon Kirk’s ability to invigorate young voters as the White House begins to turn toward the 2026 midterm elections. Republicans control every lever of power now in Washington, with the White House, House of Representatives, Senate and the Supreme Court dominated by conservatives.

But the GOP often has a tougher time motivating their base when Trump’s name is not on the ballot, and Kirk’s service gave the party a chance to remind people of those political stakes and the need to keep recruiting new voters.

“Charlie didn’t just bring young people to the movement; all of a sudden, it started to grow by leaps and bounds,” Trump told the crowd at the memorial service his aides were likening to a revival. “In 2024, we won more young people than any Republican candidate in the history of our country.” He also took swipes at liberals, noting that unlike Kirk, he doesn’t “want the best for” his opponents.

A Pew Research Center exit poll of voters in the 2024 election found that voters ages 18 to 49 favored Vice President Kamala Harris by 7 percentage points, compared with a 17-point margin for former President Joe Biden in 2020.

Kirk’s assassination, roughly 12 days ago, stunned the political world. Kirk was personally close to Trump, Vice President JD Vance and several top aides in the White House. The organization he founded instead of attending college, Turning Point USA, played a key role in helping to organize young voters for the 2024 election, particularly young White, Black and Latino men.

Kirk was shot in the neck while at a Utah university debate. Tyler Robinson, 22, is charged with aggravated murder and other charges and state prosecutors say they intend to seek the death penalty. The motive is still unclear.

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said Kirk’s army of young activists both “outworked and out-hustled” Democrats, helping to make a “winning difference” in Trump’s sweeping victory of every battleground state. Kirk also helped to add new voices to expand the Republican base, a key part of Trump’s winning strategy, as Democrats argued among themselves last year over their ideology and policy priorities.

One top Turning Point official, Tyler Bowyer, said on social media this week that Kirk had converted young men to become Republicans. Now Erika Kirk, his widow and the leader of the organization, “is coming to convert the young women,” a nod to the challenges Democrats continue to face with disenchanted young voters.

“Everything that Turning Point USA built through Charlie’s vision and hard work, we will make ten times greater through the power of his memory,” Erika Kirk said from the stage on Sunday, dressed in a white pantsuit and with a large silver cross hanging from her neck. Dabbing at tears and speaking in front of tens of thousands in Glendale, Arizona’s State Farm Stadium, Kirk vowed that thousands of new Turning Point chapters would be created.

As the service continued Sunday afternoon, the speeches took on a decidedly more political tone.

Donald Trump Jr., who noted that Kirk was like a little brother, said the young activist was the person who convinced Republicans to try to change hearts and minds on college campuses instead of giving up and waiting until that generation was older and more aligned with Republicans on fiscal issues like lower taxes. Kirk started working alongside Trump and his inner circle during the 2016 campaign.

“His legacy must be that when they took his life a million more Charlies stepped up to fill the void,” Trump Jr. said. “No matter your past, no matter how you voted, no matter where you come from, this movement is your home.”

Officials like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth noted the way Kirk helped to inject more Christianity into the US government and politics more broadly. “Over time, he realized this is not a political war or a cultural war but a spiritual war,” Hegseth told the crowd.

Mourners who’d heeded Turning Point’s direction to wear their Sunday best in red, white and blue — started streaming toward the stadium before dawn. Inside, praise and worship music blared, with some attendees lifting their hands and swaying along to Christian singers, as a voter registration drive moved through the rows.

So many top administration officials attended the service from Washington DC that the White House flew two government planes to Arizona. Trump watched the proceedings inside the stadium behind bulletproof glass — an acknowledgment of the two assassination attempts he survived during the 2024 election. Bulletproof glass also shielded the speakers’ podium.

Trump stood up and waved to the crowd during various interludes, to chants of “USA, USA,” with several family members by his side, including Trump Jr., Eric Trump and, at one point, billionaire Elon Musk, with whom the president had a public falling out earlier this year.

Vance recognized the effect Kirk had on the shape of Republican politics, as he talked about the massive number of Trump officials in attendance.

“Our whole administration is here, but not just because we love Charlie as a friend, even though we did, but because we know we wouldn’t be here without him,” Vance said. “Charlie built an organization that reshaped the balance of our politics.”

_____

©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.