Erika Kirk, the widow of conservative leader Charlie Kirk, stood before tens of thousands at State Farm Stadium on Sunday and offered a message that startled even amid grief: forgiveness for the man accused of murdering her husband.
“That man, that young man … I forgive him,” she said through tears, her words drowned out by a thunderous ovation. The 36-year-old mother of two framed her stance as both an act of faith and a reflection of her late husband’s principles. “I forgive him because it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”
I’m grateful that Erika Kirk just gave us one of the finest moments in American public life by invoking Christ’s own Passion and publicly forgiving her husband’s murderer. It was such a powerful witness of faith. Our country needed that grace.
pic.twitter.com/0HX96TUrRw— Giancarlo Sopo (@GiancarloSopo) September 21, 2025
The service, which saw a crowd estimated to be 300,000, honored Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, who was fatally shot last week during a debate at Utah Valley University. Prosecutors say 22-year-old Tyler Robinson confessed to the killing in a text to his roommate, writing, “I had enough of his hatred.”
Erika Kirk described the shattering hours after the shooting, recounting her arrival at the Utah hospital where her husband lay. “I saw the wound that ended his life … I felt shock, I felt horror and a level of heartache that I didn’t even know existed,” she said. Yet she also spoke of mercy. “But even in death, I could see the man that I loved. I saw the single gray hair on the side of his head, which I never told him about. I also saw in his lips the faintest smile. It revealed to me a great mercy from God in this tragedy. When I saw that, it told me Charlie didn’t suffer.”
Her testimony turned broader, reflecting on how the nation has responded. “We didn’t see violence, we didn’t see riots. We didn’t see revolution. Instead we saw what my husband always prayed he would see in this country: We saw revival. We saw people open a Bible for the first time in a decade,” she said, urging Americans to sustain that awakening. “Pray again, read the Bible again, go to church next Sunday, and the Sunday after that and break free from the temptations and shackles of this world.”
Several dignitaries also spoke, including Vice President J.D. Vance who warned that “evil still walks among us” and dismissed the idea of “a fake kumbaya moment.”
Erika also returned to her husband’s cause of restoring family life. “The greatest cause in Charlie’s life was trying to revive the American family,” she said, recalling how he encouraged young people to embrace biblical marriage. Addressing the men in the audience, she urged them to lead as her husband had. “Please be a leader worth following. Your wife is not your servant. Your wife is not your employee. Your wife is not your slave. She is your helper. You are not rivals. You are one flesh, working together for the glory of God.”
In her closing words, she portrayed his death as the fulfillment of a mission. “He was ready to die, he left this world without regrets” because he had done “100% of what he wanted to do every day,” she said. “He died with incomplete work but not with unfinished business.”
Erika Kirk’s full speech can be seen below:
Erika Kirk’s entire speech today at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service.
I would encourage every American to watch this.
One of the most impactful speeches I’ve ever heard. pic.twitter.com/RoeZLRtolT
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 22, 2025
Only days after the assassination, Erika Kirk assumed leadership of Turning Point USA, the organization her husband founded in 2012. Her rise signals both continuity and defiance, a vow to carry his vision forward in a nation now reckoning with his absence.
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Truth awesome