Trump Awards Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom

President Trump paid tribute to Charlie Kirk with a Rose Garden celebration on what would have been his 32nd birthday — as his widow Erika revealed he likely would have run for president one day.

Trump, 79, called the assassinated conservative activist a “martyr” worthy to be honored with some of the most famous names in history.

“Charlie Kirk was a martyr for truth and for freedom,” the president said. “And from Socrates to Saint Peter, from Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King, those who change history the most — and he really did — have always risked their lives for causes they were put on Earth to defend.”

Trump added that the murdered Turning Point USA cofounder was “looking down on us right now” on a warm fall day in the nation’s capital.

“We’ve watched legions of far-left radicals resort to desperate acts of violence and terror because they know that their ideas and arguments are persuading no one. They know that they’re failing,” the president said.

“They have the devil’s ideology and they’re failing. And they know it. They feel it, and they become violent.”

Tyler Robinson, 22, is accused of murdering Kirk Sept. 10 during a speaking event at Utah Valley University because he disagreed with the activist’s political views.

Trump told guests at the ceremony that he “raced back” from the Middle East to make the ceremony.

“I raced back halfway around the globe. I was going to call Erika and say, ‘Erika, could you maybe move it to Friday?’” said Trump, who returned to the White House around 3 a.m. Tuesday after stops in Israel and Egypt on Monday to formalize the Israel-Hamas peace deal.

“I didn’t have the courage to call,” Trump said. “But you know why I didn’t call? Because I heard today was Charlie’s birthday … And I said, ‘We’re gonna have to forget about some of those very big, very rich countries that expected me to be there.’”

“He should have been turning 32 years old,” Trump added of Kirk.

“When I first met him, he was like 22 and I said, ‘Boy, he’s awfully young,’ but I thought he was older than that … He was special. But instead, Charlie is attaining a far more important milestone. We’re entering his name forever into the eternal roster of true American heroes.”

Trump also said Kirk’s murder illustrates why voters should reject Virginia Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones over his text-message fantasy of murdering a Republican colleague in the state legislature.

“We’ve seen that a candidate for attorney general in Virginia boasted that he would want to see the Republican legislator, a legislator in Virginia, shot in the head, and to see his children murdered. They actually said this,” Trump said.

“And now he continues to run for office, and most people continue to back him, but he said he wants this man shot, he said, shot in the head, and to see his children murdered. And they keep running. Pretty amazing, right? That’s a bad one. Let’s see how that turns out. But that’s a really bad one.”

“Nobody’s heard that one before,” the president went on. “Especially in the wake of Charlie’s assassination, our country must have absolutely no tolerance for this radical-left violence, extremism and terror.”

Erika Kirk told the assembly that her late husband usually enjoyed low-key birthdays with mint chocolate chip ice cream.

“President Trump, I have spent seven and a half years trying to find the perfect birthday gift for Charlie, and it’s so difficult,” she said.

“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.”

Erika, who also read a message from the couple’s young daughter with birthday wishes, predicted that Charlie “probably would have run for president” had he not been assassinated last month.

“There was no limit, no limit to what he would have sacrificed to defend freedom for all. And if the moment had come, he probably would have run for president, but not out of ambition,” she said.

“He would only have done it if that was something that he believed that his country needed, from a servant’s heart standpoint. Charlie lived only 31 short years on this side of heaven, but he lived every single second, every single day with purpose, and he fought for truth when it was unpopular.”

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