ARLINGTON, Va. -- President Donald Trump announced Thursday he will award slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
One day after Kirk was shot and killed during an event at a Utah university, Trump called Kirk "a giant of his generation, a champion of liberty and an inspiration to millions and millions of people."
Awarded by the president, the Presidential Medal of Freedom is the federal government's highest civilian honor, given to individuals to recognize a lifetime of achievements. The date of the ceremony has yet to be announced.
Speaking at a memorial service at the Pentagon commemorating the 184 people who died at Defense Department headquarters 24 years ago during the 9/11 terror attacks, Trump called Kirk's killing a "heinous assassination."
"We miss him greatly, yet I have no doubt that Charlie's voice and the courage he put into the hearts of countless people, especially young people, will live on," he said of the late Turning Point USA co-founder, who was a longtime ally of the president.
Trump told reporters later that he would speak with Kirk's family Thursday. Vice President JD Vance canceled his plan appearance at New York's 9/11 ceremony reportedly to travel to visit Kirk's family. Kirk, 31, was married with two young children.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also praised Kirk at the event, saying "Like those on 9/11, you will never be forgotten."
During Thursday's service, Trump pledged to never forget Sept. 11, 2001, and "the horror of that morning" when 2,977 people were killed in simultaneous terrorist attacks that crashed airplanes into the Pentagon, the World Trade Center buildings in New York and a field in Pennsylvania.
The president recounted the stories of individuals on each of the four planes, including a pregnant woman aboard American Airlines Flight 77, who called her mom 25 minutes before the plane crashed into the courtyard of the Pentagon.
"In America, we take blows, but we never buckle," Trump said. "We bleed, but we do not bow, and we defy the fear, endure the flames and emerge from the crucible of every hardship stronger, prouder and greater than ever before."
He addressed the recent renaming of the Department of Defense to the "Department of War," saying, "If you attack the United States of America, we will hunt you down and we will find you," he said. "We will press you without mercy, and we will triumph without question."
He pledged to "honor always" the fallen heroes of 9/11.
"We will defend the nation they served, the values they upheld, and the freedom for which they died," he said. "We will support our troops, we will protect our families, and we will preserve the American way of life for every future generation."