First lady Melania Trump honored political activist Charlie Kirk following his assassination at a college campus in Utah.
Melania Trump wrote about Kirk’s legacy and his family — his wife, Erika, a 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son — in a post on X.
“Charlie’s children will be raised with stories instead of memories, photographs instead of laughter, and silence where their father’s voice should have echoed,” Melania Trump wrote Thursday.
“Charlie Kirk’s life should serve as a symbolic reminder that compassionate awareness elevates family, love, and country,” she added.
Kirk was shot and killed Wednesday as he was talking at an event on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, per Fox News.
He was transported to Timpanogos Regional Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
As of Thursday afternoon, the gunman remained at large.
The FBI released photos of a person of interest, per ABC News.
“We are asking for the public’s help identifying this person of interest in connection with the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University,” the FBI’s Salt Lake City office posted on X along with photos of the person of interest,
The FBI is also offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to the identification and arrest of the person responsible for the murder.
President Donald Trump will award political activist Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously, IJR reported.
Trump said Kirk was “a giant of his generation, a champion of liberty and an inspiration to millions and millions of people.”
In a social media post, Trump said that in honor of Kirk, “a truly Great American Patriot, I am ordering all American Flags throughout the United States lowered to Half Mast until Sunday evening at 6 P.M.”
“No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,” the president wrote in another post. “He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family. Charlie, we love you!”
In August, Kirk posted a photo of the first lady wearing a crown on a fake Vanity Fair cover on X, writing, “We need to meme the cover into existence.”
