Some 200,000 people – including just about the entire Trump administration – flocked to Phoenix, Arizona, on Sunday for the memorial service honoring Charlie Kirk.
It was a service packed with emotional and stirring eulogies from some of the people who knew him best, but there was perhaps no moment more impactful than when his widow, Erika Kirk, took the stage to address the massive crowd and share that she has forgiven her husband’s killer.
On Monday’s show, Megyn was joined by The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles, host of The Michael Knowles Show, to discuss Erika’s “superhuman” strength and what the memorial revealed about the cultural shift underway in the United States.
Charlie’s Mission
Last week, it was announced that Erika would be taking over as the CEO of Turning Point USA to continue the mission her husband started at just 18 years old. She spoke of his calling, particularly as it related to reaching out to disaffected young men, during her remarks on Sunday.
“Charlie passionately wanted to reach and save the lost boys of the West, the young men who feel like they have no direction, no purpose, no faith, and no reason to live; the men wasting their lives on distractions; and the men consumed with resentment, anger and hate,” she shared. “Charlie wanted to help them. He wanted them to have a home with Turning Point USA. And when he went on to campus, he was looking to show them a better path and a better life that was right there for the taking. He wanted to show them that.”
That included, she said, the 22-year-old Utah man accused of assassinating him. “My husband, Charlie, he wanted to save young men – just like the one who took his life,” Erika added.
Megyn praised Erika for being able to “channel how Charlie would have viewed” his suspected killer. “That was such an astute observation,” she said. “Charlie was there on these campuses, in large part, to save people like… his killer… who had gotten brainwashed into radical far-left thinking about issues like gender and so on and to tell them… Jesus envisioned something better for them, that their lives could be better, that they did not have to go on this downward spiral… That is what Charlie was doing there at great danger to himself.”
Therein lies the contrast, Megyn noted, between what was and what could have been. “To be able to channel how Charlie would have viewed the young man who killed him… and what Charlie would have done had they had a face-to-face chat at one of… his events, I think she is spot on. He absolutely would have… heard him out… [and] challenged his ideas in a way that was kind, and loving, and forgiving, and open,” she explained. “And maybe he could have helped him… If that guy had only gotten on line instead of gotten on a rooftop, his life could have been saved.”
Finding Forgiveness
In a deeply moving moment, Erika then told the crowd why she has chosen to forgive her husband’s murderer. “My husband, Charlie, he wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life,” she said. “On the cross our Savior said, ‘Father, forgive them for they not know what they do.’ That man, that young man, I forgive him.”
Megyn and Knowles were both at the memorial and said there was not a dry eye in the room after that “superhuman” declaration. “It felt like a gut punch in the room… like a good gut punch, like a salutary gut punch,” Knowles recalled. “And consider the reaction of the crowd… which immediately gets on its feet, tears in their eyes, immediately starts applauding… It boggles the mind that one could have that reaction, that one could have that kind of strength and charity.”
In publicly expressing her forgiveness, Knowles said Erika not only showed the world “the power of Christian forgiveness” but also “the political power of that kind of forgiveness.” And he believes that can change the world.
“If I were a young man on a university campus right now trying to figure out what I think about the world… [and] which way of life is going to be most conducive to my happiness, and I see one side… calling for violence, nastiness, mutilating themselves, degrading themselves; and then I see Erica Kirk on the other hand and 100,000 people… on their feet applauding, cheering that kind of forgiveness and that kind of charity,” he concluded. “It would take a heart of stone not to be moved to that side.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Knowles by tuning in to episode 1,154 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.