President Donald Trump posthumously awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor to right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk, who was killed last month while speaking at a Utah campus. But mostly, Trump talked about himself.
Speaking outside the Rose Garden on Tuesday, Trump began by reading from prepared remarks about Kirk before presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Trump was joined by Erika Kirk, the wife of the slain pundit.
“Today, we’re here to honor and remember a fearless warrior for liberty,” Trump said. “Beloved leader who galvanized the next generation like nobody I’ve ever seen before. And an American patriot of the deepest conviction. The finest quality and the highest caliber.”
But Trump soon went off script, telling the audience that Kirk didn’t love his enemies.
“I got to know him so well,” Trump said. “He didn’t like losing, and he was able to fight people that were his enemies, and he didn’t necessarily love those enemies so much. And I heard, I heard he loved his enemies, and I said: ‘Wait a minute, is that the same Charlie that I know? I’m not sure,’ but I didn’t want to get into it. But it was a horrible, heinous, demonic act of murder.”
