Thousands of mourners, including White House cabinet officials and more than 85 members of Congress, packed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to capacity on Sunday to pay their respects to Charlie Kirk, who was killed earlier last week at Utah Valley University.
The event featured prominent speakers such as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., all of whom emphasized Kirk’s outspoken Christian faith.
During his eulogy, Speaker Johnson suggested that Kirk’s murder continues to reveal a growing spiritual darkness that has shaken even those in positions of power.
“It’s as if a dark shadow was cast over our country, and certainly here, even on Capitol Hill, the leaders of the nation have been shaken, as have university students and college students and young people all across the country,” he said. “It’s as if the ground was shifted beneath us.”
“We remember that our dear friend, Charlie, would never want us to be overcome by despair; he would want exactly the opposite,” Johnson added. “Charlie Kirk recruited and trained and educated a generation of happy warriors, and we do well to be reminded that the best way to honor his memory and honor his unmatched legacy is to live as Charlie did.”
Shouts of “USA!” rang out as HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took the podium to deliver a message of courage and forgiveness in a theater named after his murdered uncle.
He shared that his 17-year-old niece recently packed a Bible before heading to Europe for school, telling her mother, “I want to live like Charlie Kirk.”
Kennedy emphasized that Kirk’s Christian faith and devotion to American principles were inseparable. “The overarching mission of Charlie Kirk was Jesus and also free speech, and he saw that these were intertwined,” Kennedy said.
“We need to reach out with love to the people on the other side who are asleep, and who are too frightened and too manic and too controlled to understand what they are losing, and we need to protect those things until they wake up,” he added.
Kennedy, who was just 14 years old when his father was assassinated in 1968, spoke about growing through grief and recalled a private conversation he had with Kirk about the danger of being killed for standing against evil.
“We were talking about the danger that we both face in challenging entrenched interests,” Kennedy explained. “And he asked me if I was scared to die, and I said, ‘There’s a lot worse things than dying.’”
He reflected, “Chief among these is losing our constitutional rights, and having our children raised in slavery. What I said to him at that time is, ‘Sometimes our only consolation is that we can die with our boots on. We can die fighting for these things,’” Kennedy continued.
“Charlie gave his life so that the rest of us would not have to suffer those fates worse than death,” Kennedy concluded. “Now it’s our job, that he’s no longer there to lead us, to rush in and fill the breach and win this battle for our country, for God and for our families.”
