President Trump and Erika Kirk offered markedly different messages at Sunday’s memorial service for Charlie Kirk, showcasing a battle for what the conservative movement stands for centering on love and hate.
By far the most striking moment of Turning Point USA’s memorial event on Sunday was Erika Kirk’s proclamation that she forgives her husband’s suspected assassin, quoting Jesus on the cross: “Father forgive them, for they not know what they do.”
“I forgive him because it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do,” she said. “The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is love and always love.”
President Trump, speaking right after Kirk, relayed a starkly different attitude. The killer, he said, was a “radicalized, cold-blooded monster.” And he leaned in to hate.
“[Charlie Kirk] did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them, I’m sorry,” Trump said.
“I am sorry, Erika. But now Erika can talk to me and the whole group and maybe they can convince me that’s not right. But I can’t stand my opponent.”
In many ways, those two messages summed up what a lot of conservatives have grappled with in the 13 days following Charlie Kirk’s shocking and ugly assassination.
Love or hate, justice or vengeance — what will drive the right more in the wake of Kirk’s death? And what should drive the movement?
As I wrote in last week’s newsletter, anger over Kirk’s killing has fueled the GOP’s take-no-prisoners approach to the “radical left,” with top officials forecasting investigations into their political enemies and cheering on firings of those who celebrate or rationalize his death.
Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, had also given a rousing speech at Kirk’s memorial that articulated such “righteous fury.”
“To our enemies, you have nothing to give, you have nothing to offer, you have nothing to share but bitterness,” Miller said at the memorial. “We have beauty. We have light. We have goodness. We have determination. … You have no idea the dragon you have awakened.”
Christian conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey argued that the contrasting messages from Erika Kirk and Miller are “exactly as it should be.”
“It is our job to forgive, not the government’s. Christians give grace; the government wields the sword (Romans 13). We turn the other cheek; the government punishes evil,” Stuckey posted on the social platform X.
The Trump administration, though, needs buy-in from the conservative base if it is to carry out the most aggressive investigations of left-wing groups and beyond.
There are already some core disputes about the principles of free speech as part of the conservative movement lashes out at critics of Charlie Kirk.
Attorney General Pam Bondi got in hot water last week after she suggested she would prosecute a company that refused to print posters for a vigil honoring Kirk. She said the Trump administration would “go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.” (More on that here, from my colleague Brett Samuels.)
That crossed a bright red line for many conservatives — and after backlash, Bondi clarified she would only prosecute speech that amounts to “threats of violence.”
Trump, by contrast, has encouraged Bondi to bring “RICO cases” against CODEPINK protesters who interrupted his visit to a restaurant with the chant, “Free D.C., Free Palestine, Trump is the Hitler of our time.” And when asked by ABC News’s Jonathan Karl about Bondi’s comments, Trump said she would “probably go after people like you, because you treat me so unfairly.”
It’s not just basic free speech issues getting debated in the wake of Kirk’s killing. It has also exposed deepening cracks over Israel in the conservative movement, and the norms around how much criticism of the country is accepted in right-wing circles.
Israel-critical commentators Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson have claimed that Kirk was slowly evolving his views about Israel before he was killed — and allegedly enraging major donors to Turning Point USA in the process. (Axios’s Tal Axelrod has a rundown on some of that here.)
We do know a little bit, by the way, about the backlash Kirk was getting over Israel issues from Kirk himself. On Megyn Kelly’s show in early August, Kirk said that he was frustrated at the flack he was getting for hosting a debate on Israel at a Turning Point USA event in July, featuring comic Dave Smith’s criticism of Israel.
But even as the aftershocks from Kirk’s death have deepened some rifts on the right, they’ve also inspired some bridge-building. Some commentators and influencers have pledged to focus less on ideological infighting.
Elon Musk sat with Trump for a while at the jam-packed memorial for Kirk, and the two shook hands — a notable development after their public falling-out over the summer. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who said he had talked to Musk about supporting the GOP in the 2026 midterms before his falling-out with the president, rejoiced at the reunion: “Among the themes yesterday were unity, forgiveness, and patriotism. Powerful!”
Trump, though, downplayed the interaction. Asked whether Kirk brought the two men back together, he said: “Elon came over and said hello. No, it’s nothing to do with that.”
Further reading on the Turning Point USA Kirk memorial: Five takeaways from the Charlie Kirk memorial by my colleague Brett Samuels … A Splintered GOP Shows Signs of Unity in Wake of Charlie Kirk’s Killing, by The Wall Street Journal’s Alex Leary… Kirk’s memorial signals a deeper embrace of evangelical politics on the right, by Axios’s Marc Caputo
Welcome to The Movement, a weekly newsletter looking at the influences and debates on the right in Washington. I’m Emily Brooks, House leadership reporter at The Hill.
Tell me what you thought of Kirk’s memorial, and what else is going on in the conservative movement: ebrooks@thehill.com.
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HOUSE GOP DIVIDED ON PROBING ‘RADICAL LEFT’
Outside those in the Trump administration, one of the most notable pushes from public officials in the wake of Kirk’s assassination was a letter led by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) that called for the creation of a select committee with full subpoena authority to investigate “the money, influence, and power behind the radical left’s assault on America and the rule of law.”
More than three dozen Republicans have signed on to the letter to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) calling for a new panel.
Comer, even though he has no shortage of work this Congress as he also leads probes into the Epstein files and former President Biden’s use of the autopen, told me he will supports “whatever the leadership wants” when asked about such a panel.
But Jordan didn’t seem interested in a new committee.
“We’re already looking at some of the crazy policies and crazy positions of the left,” Jordan told me last week when I asked about Roy’s push for a new select committee. “We’ve been doing that, you know, for the last two years.”
Jordan continued: “We got investigations into ActBlue. We got investigations [into] some of these NGOs who we think are undermining policies with some of our allies, particularly the state of Israel. We got investigations like that ongoing.”
Roy said that even if there is not a new committee, he wants to see a deeper investigation into liberal and progressive organizations and philanthropists.
“No one around here likes to change the current status quo. Everybody likes their committee jurisdictions. They want to operate through there. Fine,” Roy said. “Then what are we going to do? That’s my question.”
He said there’s a “growing consensus” that conservatives need to “expose” the coordinated actions of the left. “And so I would just ask, what Congress is going to do about that? … I just don’t think we’re doing a sufficient job exposing that.”
ONE-PAGER ON TRUMP PHARMA POLICY AND CHINA
Advancing American Freedom, the group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, is sending a one-page memo to Capitol Hill offices today arguing that Trump’s tariff and pharmaceutical policies “might forfeit America’s pharmaceutical advantage.”
“While President Trump’s first term reset the narrative on China, his second term is handing America’s pharmaceutical superpower status over to the Chinese Communist Party,” it says.
It noted Trump previously floatED tariffs as high as 250 percent in the U.S.-European Union trade deal, though later details of the deal indicated the tariff would be limited to 15 percent, per the BBC. At the same time, “China is throwing billions of dollars at American scientists and pharmaceutical companies to perform research and partner with Chinese companies,” it said.
“‘Most Favored Nation’ is Washington Speak for Socialist Price Controls,” it argues, calling for deregulation to create more affordable pharmaceuticals.
Here’s a refresher my colleague Nathaniel Weixel wrote: In July, Trump sent letters to 17 of the world’s largest drug companies telling them to take more steps to slash the prices of prescription drugs to match the lowest price in certain foreign countries — launching a “most favored nation” model, which ties the prices of prescription medicines in the U.S. to the lowest found among comparably wealthy nations.
“America is the birthplace of companies that have saved millions and millions of lives. We should embrace these companies rather than push them into the arms of the CCP,” the memo says.
Related: GOP rebels extract tariff concession from House leaders, from me.
ON MY CALENDAR
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Wednesday, Oct. 1: The Federalist Society hosts a preview of the Supreme Court’s October 2025 term at the Mayflower Hotel.
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Wednesday, Oct. 8: The Cato Institute hosts a conversation with former Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioners William Beach and Erica Groshen.
THREE MORE THINGS
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The regulatory-reform-focused Competitive Enterprise Institute’s president, Kent Lassman, made a pointed joke about the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) at its swanky annual dinner last week in wake of commission Chair Brendan Carr’s comments about stations airing Jimmy Kimmel’s show. Lassman recounted the joke to me: “I noticed there’s a little bit of tension in the air earlier. Maybe some of you were worried. … We have a lot of regulators here tonight. We have very senior staff from across the whole government, people from the SEC, the Speaker’s office, all across the Senate and the House. … I even noticed someone from the chairman’s office at the FCC. I think that might be the tension, or why some people were a little on edge. And I want you all to know there is no reason to worry. Even though I didn’t run tonight’s monologue past him, I think everything is going to be just fine.” Ba-dum-tss!
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There’s a new crime-focused advocacy group on the block. Anti-crime advocates Doug Deason and Justin Keener last week launched Americans for Public Safety, a 501(c)4 that “will support candidates and policies that respect law enforcement, deliver justice to victims, and uphold the Constitution.” They wrote in the Washington Examiner: “Despite what some pundits may tell you, more police means less crime.” Deason is a conservative donor who is also involved with Turning Point USA and Right on Crime; Keener is on the board of the Council of Criminal Justice.
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Donald Trump Jr. did an impression of his father during his speech at Kirk’s memorial service, talking about the president’s criticism of his social media: “You know Don — Don, you’re getting a little aggressive on social media, Don. Relax.”
WHAT I’M READING
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