WASHINGTON — Tonight, Speaker Johnson hosted a bipartisan vigil in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol Building for Members of Congress to honor the life of Charlie Kirk following his tragic assassination.
Watch Speaker Johnson’s remarks at the vigil here.
Speaker Johnson delivered the following remarks:
“We thank you all for being here. This has been a very difficult week in America. There’s a wide range of emotions that have been felt by the American people and frankly, by leaders in the nation’s capital: sadness, of course, unspeakable grief that people have felt.
Many of the people assembled here in Statuary Hall today were personal friends of Charlie Kirk, knew him well, watched his ministry and his organization develop over the years. Then the sadness for so many of us turned to anger. There’s been a mixture of emotions that included fear on behalf of a lot of people around the country.
“This was a heinous political violence, an assassination. Our friend, Charlie, did not pass away in a car accident. He was assassinated for standing for his political beliefs. And for so many of us, it has felt as if the ground has been shaken.
“It’s not just the people assembled here, of course, it involves students on the university campuses around America and the over 3,000 chapters of Turning Point that are on university, college campuses, and high school campuses around the country – and all of the people in the network and in the conservative movement and, and throughout the nation that have heard Charlie’s voice and felt a part of all that he was involved with. He was on a mixture of media and his voice was heard loudly and clearly.
“What we do know about Charlie is that he would not want us to be overcome by despair and would want us to carry the message forward to honor his memory and to expand the legacy he left behind.
“I’ve spoken as many of us have at a lot of memorial services over the last several days. Some in my home state. We had one here at the Kennedy Center last night, as you all know. But we felt it was appropriate for us to gather here in the nation’s capital in Statuary Hall to mark the passing of our friend to share in a moment of reflection and a prayer together, which we’ll have in a few moments after a few of the leaders speak here briefly.
“I’ve summarized in every public remark that I’ve given that I think the best way to honor the memory of Charlie Kirk is to live as he lived. I’ve encouraged young people to do two things: Advance his principles and adopt his approach.
“The principles that Charlie stood for were faith and freedom, family and virtue, patriotism and America, which he believed was the greatest nation in the history of the world. Those are good principles to advance, and you honor Charlie by doing so. You honor your country also to adopt his approach, because Charlie was a happy warrior, and he was not angry at anybody over those things that he was advancing.
“He never hated anyone. In fact, in Charlie’s own words, he was motivated by love. He believed in the words of scripture. He identified himself to be a Christ follower, and he tried to model that every single day in everything that he did.
“As I remarked a couple of times already this week, what I loved about Charlie the most is that even though he could win any debate, he never held it against anyone on the other side of the table. To the contrary, he was the very first person to reach out a hand of friendship or to put his arm around the shoulder of someone who was on the complete opposite side of the political spectrum, philosophy, or ideology. It was about the people. That’s what Charlie represented, and his legacy will go on. Scripture reminds us that we should not be overcome by evil, but we should overcome evil with good. That is the legacy of Charlie Kirk.”
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