West
Charlie Kirk posthumously awarded Medal of Freedom on what would have been his 32nd birthday
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President Donald Trump posthumously awarded Turning Point USA (TPUSA) co-founder Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom Tuesday — the highest award issued to civilians in the U.S.
“Today, we’re here to honor and remember a fearless warrior for liberty, a 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. The late, great Charlie Kirk,” Trump said from the Rose Garden on Tuesday.
“Five weeks ago, our nation was robbed of this extraordinary champion,” he continued. “He was assassinated in the prime of his life for boldly speaking the truth, for living his faith and relentlessly fighting for a better and stronger America. He loved this country. And that’s why this afternoon it’s my privilege to posthumously award Charles James Kirk, our nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”
Kirk, 31, was shot and killed during his “American Comeback Tour” at Utah Valley University in September. His death came a year after two assassination attempts against Trump.
CHARLIE KIRK’S COLLEAGUES AND PASTORS PRAISE HIS PATRIOTISM AS TRUMP READIES HIGHEST CIVILIAN HONOR
President Donald Trump walks onto the stage after being introduced by Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk at the Turning Point Action conference in West Palm Beach, Florida, July 15, 2023. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The award ceremony was held in the Rose Garden, notching the first high-profile event in the garden since Trump ordered the area to go under a revamp earlier this year.
“We were hoping we were able to get outside and the weather allowed us to. It was supposed to be a terrible rainy day. I was telling Erika God was watching, and he didn’t want that for Charlie,” Trump said.
Individuals who receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom are those who presidents determine have provided an “especially meritorious contribution” to the national security of the U.S., world peace or other cultural endeavors. Trump is awarding Kirk the award at the White House on what would have been his 32nd birthday.
Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, accepts the Presidential Medal of Freedom on behalf of her husband at the White House on Oct. 14. (Fox News )
“We’re entering his name forever into the eternal roster of true American heroes. He’s a true American hero, an amazing person. Way, way beyond his years. And I’m honored to be joined by a woman who has endured unspeakable hardship with unbelievable strength. And that’s Charlie’s widow, Erika. And I just want to thank you, Erika,” Trump said on Tuesday.
Argentina President Javier Milei, members of the Cabinet such as Attorney General Pam Bondi , as well as Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, and other lawmakers were among high-profile names who joined the event.
‘SLEEPING GIANT’ LIKELY WOKE UP FOR TURNING POINT USA AFTER CHARLIE KIRK’S ASSASSINATION
An image of slain conservative commentator Charlie Kirk is placed at a memorial in his honor, at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, Sept. 29, 2025. (Jim Urquhart/Reuters)
Kirk’s widow, Erika, has been tapped to serve as TPUSA’s new chief executive officer in the wake of her husband’s death to lead the organization and guide the next generation of conservative leaders.
“Charlie grew Turning Point into the largest conservative youth organization in the entire country,” Trump said on Tuesday of Kirk’s leadership of TPUSA and its growth since his killing. “He forged a personal bond with countless young conservatives. He fought for free speech, religious liberty, strong borders, and a very strong and proud America. In everything he did, he put America first. He really put America first. And ultimately, Charlie became more than a leader of an important organization. He became the leader of historic movements all over the country.”
Erika Kirk delivered a short speech during the ceremony, reflecting on her husband’s dedication to preserving America’s legacy of freedom, his love of his family and how he lived without fear due to his Christian faith.
President Donald Trump posthumously awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to late conservative activist Charlie Kirk as he presents the Medal to his wife Erika Kirk, left, during a ceremony in the Rose Garden of the White House on Oct. 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“Ironically, for a man who impacted millions, Charlie never desired to be the center of attention. He just wasn’t. My husband was not a man of extravagance. He loved simple but deeply meaningful things. … He loved his late night walks. He loved buying more books than he could ever read because he felt there was no such thing as a book budget. And he loved being able to read to our kids the same bedtime story on repeat because he knew it was their favorite,” Kirk’s young widow said.
“President Trump, I have spent seven and a half years trying to find the perfect birthday gift for Charlie, and it’s so difficult. And those of you that have spouses or loved ones, you know how difficult it is sometimes to buy a gift for someone that you love because he wasn’t a materialistic man, so that also did not help. But now I can say with confidence, Mr. President, that you have given him the best birthday gift he could ever have,” she said.
TRUMP TO AWARD CHARLIE KIRK MEDAL OF FREEDOM AFTER CAMPUS ASSASSINATION
President Donald Trump joined Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika, on stage at the Turning Point USA founder’s memorial service in Arizona on Sept. 21, 2025. (Eric Thayer/Getty Images)
The suspect behind Kirk’s assassination, Tyler Robinson, was charged in September with aggravated murder, along with other charges.
“Like those martyrs before him, Charlie’s voice, his message and his legacy are stronger and greater than ever before. They are greater than ever before. Look, this is a horrible event, but it brought out the greatness of Charlie. Nothing could have ever supplanted this. It’s incredible the way people are talking about him,’ Trump said of the assassination.
Trump remarked during the ceremony that political violence at the hands of left-leaning individuals has been on the rise.
Guests gathered to attend the ceremony in the Rose Garden of the White House on Oct. 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“They seem to become very violent on the left. They’ve rammed vehicles into federal law enforcement, fired sniper rifles at ICE agents and me, you know, but I was I made a turn at a good time,” Trump said, referring the first assassination attempt on his life in July of 2024.
Trump awarded Kirk with the medal following his visit to the Middle East to oversee a peace agreement between Israel and Hamas.
David Engelhardt, lead pastor of Kings’ Church in New York City and board member of TPUSA, told Fox News Digital ahead of the event that it’s a “privilege” to watch Kirk be honored with the award.
“Charlie is the right recipient to the Medal of Freedom because he believed that God’s moral order, found in faith, is not a limit to freedom but the soil it grows in,” Engelhardt told Fox News Digital. “People who destroy that soil in the name of safe spaces and to protect against ‘dangerous ideas’ will soon find their land barren. Charlie stood for freedom rightly ordered and founded in the gravity of God’s system.”
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San Francisco, CA
Trump floats sending federal agents to San Francisco to tackle crime
President Donald Trump was once again floating the idea of sending federal agents to San Francisco to tackle crime.
It happened during a cabinet meeting on Thursday. The president praised Mayor Daniel Lurie’s efforts to lower crime but said he can do it more effectively.
“San Francisco, I know, they have a mayor who’s trying very hard. He’s a Democrat, but he’s trying very hard, but we can do it much more effectively, because he can’t do what we do. He can’t take people out from the city and bring them to back to the country, from where they came, where they were in prisons,” Trump said.
“He’s trying. He’s doing okay, but we could do much better. We could make it a lot safer than it is. San Francisco, a great city, was a great city, could quickly become a great city again. But, you know, they’re going very slowly,” he continued.
The president implied that the mayor needs federal help to battle crime, saying immigrants are responsible for the lawlessness. However, according to a 2025 study by researches at UCLA and Northwestern, arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants was not associated with reduced crime rates.
Gabriel Medina, executive director of La Raza Community Resource Center In San Francisco agrees.
“I think we need to make sure that our city does not also try to play this game of making up ideas about always associating crime with immigrants, when immigrants commit less crime, so that’s really bad,” Medina said.
In response to the president comments, the mayor released a statement that reads: “In San Francisco, crime is down 30%, encampments are at record lows, and our city is on the rise. Public safety is my number one priority, and we are going to stay laser focused on keeping our streets safe and clean.”
This isn’t the first time President Trump has mused with the idea of sending federal agents to the Bay Area; last October, agents were staged at a military base in Alameda, but Trump called off the plan after talking with Lurie and Bay Area tech leaders.
“We cannot normalize what this president is saying from San Francisco, that crime is associated with immigration. We need to stop conflating that,” Medina said.
Denver, CO
Jazz List 8 Players on Injury Report vs. Nuggets
The Utah Jazz and Denver Nuggets are tipping off their second-to-last meeting of the 2025-26 season on Friday in the Mile High, where for the Jazz in particular, they’ll be dealing with several injuries headed into the matchup that’ll make them shorthanded once again.
Here’s what to expect on the injury front for both the Jazz and Nuggets on Friday night:
Utah Jazz Injury Report
OUT – Isaiah Collier (hamstring)
OUT – Keyonte George (hamstring)
OUT – Jaren Jackson Jr. (knee)
OUT – Walker Kessler (shoulder)
OUT – Lauri Markkanen (hip)
OUT – Jusuf Nurkic (nose)
PROBABLE – Kyle Filipowski (illness)
OUT – Blake Hinson (two-way)
It’s a lot of the same for the Jazz when looking back at some of their recent injury reports, but there’s also some good news to note as well.
Second-year big man Kyle Filipowski, specifically, is trending up to play in Denver after dealing with an illness against the Washington Wizards; an issue that kept him sidelined for one game and left the Jazz’s frontcourt notably shorthanded for what would be a double-digit loss.
During his post-All-Star stretch, Filipowski has been averaging 13.2 points, 8.8 rebounds, 4.2 assists, along with 1.2 steals and 0.9 blocks through 11 games.
He’s slotted in primarily as the Jazz’s starting center since both Walker Kessler and Jusuf Nurkic have been out with season-ending injuries, and has shown some nice flashes throughout.
However, outside of getting Filipowski back in the mix, the Jazz will still be without second-year guard Isaiah Collier, who continues to deal with hamstring soreness, and will also continue to be down Keyonte George and Lauri Markkanen with their extended absences.
It remains to be seen if any of the latter two will be able to return at some point this season, but now with less than 10 games to go on the calendar before the offseason officially hits, the chances of either Markkanen or George coming back keep getting slimmer and slimmer.
For the extent either remains out, expect to see a good chunk of Ace Bailey being the primary scoring option as he has through his recent slate of games, along with an expanded role for their two-way and 10-day players down the bench who have gotten more minutes in recent weeks.
Denver Nuggets Injury Report
OUT – David Roddy (two-way)
OUT – KJ Simpson (two-way)
As for the Nuggets, their injury slate remains clean. The only names out will be a pair of their two way signings in David Roddy and KJ Simpsons, while the rest of their roster is slated to be active.
It’s a major change from what the Nuggets have been used to all season when factoring in their several injuries to key players lasting multiple weeks.
Nikola Jokic, Cameron Johnson, Christian Braun, Aaron Gordon, and Peyton Watson have all missed significant time at one point or another this season, but against Utah, they’ll have all systems go as they roll into the game on a three-game win streak.
Tip-off between the Jazz and Nuggets lands at 7 p.m. MT in Ball Arena.
Seattle, WA
Harger: Hundreds responded to my Seattle homelessness commentary. Here’s what you said, and what I missed – MyNorthwest.com
Last week, I wrote about the word “homeless” and what it’s hiding. About Ben, who lives in his Jeep with his dog after a divorce and a job loss, ready to work, unable to get help because he doesn’t fit the profile the system was built for. About a woman in a tent in Ballard, severely addicted to fentanyl, found unresponsive twice in one week, turning down shelter every time it’s offered. About a third group: the severely mentally ill, cycling endlessly between the street, the ER, and the jail.
One word covering three completely different crises. One industry getting rich off the confusion.
I was not prepared for what came back.
A listener texted almost immediately to say I had perfectly described the homeless industrial complex. I’ve heard that phrase before. I’d never stopped to really sit with it. But that’s exactly what it is: A system that has organized itself around the problem rather than the solution, where the incentive is to manage homelessness, not end it.
Seattle readers respond: The homeless industrial complex, tiny homes, and a broken housing system
The emails and texts started coming in immediately and haven’t stopped. From people who said they felt seen for the first time. From people living this. From people who have been trying to say exactly this for years and couldn’t get anyone to listen.
Don wrote that the suffering caused by misguided homeless policy is just as real whether the motivation is malicious or simply misguided. He put it better than I did.
“The results are likely worse than what most of us could generate from a lifetime of determined ill-will,” Don wrote.
You don’t have to be cruel to cause real damage. You just have to be wrong and well-funded.
Igor called it “homeless heresy.” Two words. Said everything.
Laurie asked me to keep holding the spending accountable. I intend to.
Tammy told me her friend was given a tiny home and is doing meth inside it. She said the community has a room where residents do their drugs. She thought tiny homes were drug-free. They’re not required to be. That’s exactly what I was talking about. We put a roof over someone’s head, call it compassion, and walk away from the harder problem.
James flagged something I want to look into more closely. Affordable housing programs, he said, require proof of residency going back two years. This makes it nearly impossible for someone who is actually homeless to qualify. He was denied housing himself because his name wasn’t on his brother’s lease, even though that was the only address he had. That’s worth a much closer look.
Seattle homelessness has more categories than I described. A DV survivor showed me what I missed
Andrea is a domestic violence survivor who suffered a serious work injury the same year. She lost her mobility, her housing, and her safety all at once, and ended up back in a home with family members she’d spent years trying to escape. She doesn’t fit neatly into any of the three categories I described. She falls through every crack in the system.
I should have included her situation, and I didn’t. That was a mistake.
I’ve worked on stories with The More We Love, an organization that works specifically with women and children in situations like Andrea’s, and I want to tell her story more fully in the weeks ahead.
Steve spent seven years as a mission coordinator at a Seattle homeless mission in Belltown, interviewing everyone who came in seeking help. He wrote to describe a fourth category I did not address: people in the country illegally using services intended for others. It’s a complicated area, and I’m not going to treat his account as the final word, but it’s worth noting that people working directly in these facilities are seeing things the policy conversations aren’t accounting for.
Sally, a low-income senior who navigated the system herself and now rides Seattle buses regularly, wrote to describe several more categories I had not addressed: LGBTQ+ youth, domestic violence survivors on the run, and the residentially unstable who cycle through evictions and can’t get along in shelter settings. She’s offered to talk, and I may take her up on it.
North Beacon Hill: Open-air drug use, encampments near schools, and letters that go nowhere
Kevin is from North Beacon Hill. He wrote to describe his neighborhood: the parks full of encampments, the open-air drug use and sales, the day cares and schools nearby, the community group writing letters that go nowhere. His council member attended one meeting and didn’t seem particularly interested. The neighborhood is left to document what’s happening and hope someone eventually notices.
I went out to Kevin’s North Beacon Hill neighborhood this week. I talked to him. That report airs early next week, and I think you’ll want to check it out.
Seattle’s homeless policy is failing. People see it clearly. They just needed someone to say it
People aren’t confused about this. They see it clearly. They’ve been seeing it for years. They just haven’t had anyone reflect it back to them without flinching.
Igor called it heresy. Around here, maybe it is. We’ve spent billions. The people sleeping outside are still sleeping outside. The people like Ben who just need a hand up can’t get one. And suggesting that what we’re doing clearly isn’t working is apparently the most controversial thing you can say in this city.
I’m not done with this story. Not even close.
Charlie Harger is the host of on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries . Follow Charlie and email him .
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