Trump Compares Charlie Kirk to Socrates as He Awards Medal of Freedom

Donald Trump on Tuesday compared conservative commentator and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk to Socrates when he posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which apparently means nothing now.

The reward was announced on what would have been Kirk's 32nd birthday if not for his murder in Utah at the hands of 22-year-old Tyler Robinson.

“Charlie never missed an opportunity to remind us of the Judeo-Christian principles of our nation's founding or to share his deep Christian faith. In his final moments, Charlie testified to the greatness of America and the glory of our savior with whom he now rests in heaven,” Trump said at the ceremony. “Charlie Kirk was a martyr for truth and freedom. From Socrates… to St. Peter, from Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King, those who changed history the most – and he did – always risked their lives for the causes they were put on earth to defend.”

Trump also used the awards ceremony to continue to spread lies about the prevalence of organized leftist violence.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom was established by President John F. Kennedy as the highest honor a civilian can receive for people who have “made especially distinguished contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

Kirk did not embody this, no matter how hard the right tried to clean up his image. In addition to helping Trump successfully push significant numbers of young people into the MAGA movement, Kirk made a name for himself by talking down to and cutting college students, promoting blatant anti-Black and anti-Latino racism, and using the Bible to deny the humanity of gays and transgender people. There was nothing in his life like the award that was given to such cultural heavyweights as Maya Angelou, Desmond Tutu, Stephen Hawking, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr.

The medal has lost some of its luster in recent years as Trump awarded it to people simply for helping him rather than for adding meaning to American life and culture. In his first term, he presented the award to right-wing commentator (and Kirk inspiration) Rush Limbaugh, Zionist conservative mega-donor Miriam Adelson and Republican Rep. Jim Jordan. And the second medal went to disgraced former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and now Kirk, with Ben Carson expected to be awarded next.