“I forgive him.” They were three little words, and yet, they were huge.

In a stadium packed to capacity, Erika Kirk’s address to an assassin was delivered in tears and received with silence until the crowd grew into applause.

“The answer to hate is not hate,” she added. It is, perhaps, the message America needs to hear most and the one it has heard least.

As it happened: Trump delivers speech at Charlie Kirk’s memorial

The memorial to Charlie Kirk felt like a Republican state funeral in all but name.

This was MAGA in mourning, an occasion that laid bare the influence of Charlie Kirk and his politics.

They had travelled in their tens of thousands to the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

They saluted a conservative icon and the dress code crafted a patriotic spectacle in red, white and blue.

It was an act of remembrance on a stadium scale, huge in size and sentiment. It was also big on politics.

From the president down, the Trump administration’s top tier spoke of politics after 10 September, the day Charlie Kirk was killed.

This was a Republican movement in one place, with one microphone, after an assassination that accelerated the tectonic shift in US politics.

A week and a half since the assassination, political reaction has distilled into a war over freedom of speech and that was revisited by the president, even if he reserved most of his speech to pay homage to Charlie Kirk.

The White House decanted a full team from Washington DC to Arizona.

They came for reasons of sympathy and bereavement, of course. It was also an occasion laced with politics.

This was Washington’s travelling roadshow swinging by the support that Charlie built.

The same support was critical in helping Donald Trump back into power at the last election, and the challenge confronting the White House is in harnessing that vote in his absence and carrying it forward.

Read more:
Kirk producer: ‘Miracle’ stopped bullet killing anyone else
Armed man charged with impersonating officer at memorial

Politically, it was a full-court press to style the horses amongst the youth vote and Christian nationalists.

Charlie Kirk brought them onside, and Team Trump wants to keep them there.

The producer of Charlie Kirk’s podcast has claimed that a “miracle” stopped more people being killed by the bullet that hit the right-wing influencer.

Andrew Kolvet claimed to have spoken to a surgeon that tried to save Mr Kirk’s life, and posted on social media to discuss the apparent lack of an exit wound.

A prominent right-wing figure in the US, Mr Kirk was a staunch ally of President Donald Trump and was known for his conservative viewpoints on abortion, religion and LGBT issues.

The 31-year-old was shot dead while speaking at a university event in Utah last week.

Mr Trump and other public figures are expected to be in Arizona on Sunday for a memorial service for Mr Kirk which is expected to draw 100,000 people.

Mr Kolvet, executive producer of the Charlie Kirk Show, apologised for the “somewhat graphic” nature of his post on X.

In it, he discussed what he said was a lack of an exit wound from the bullet, despite it being “a high powered, high velocity round”.

Mr Kolvet included what he said were quotes from a surgeon who operated on Mr Kirk.

“It was an absolute miracle that someone else didn’t get killed,” Mr Kolvet quoted the surgeon as saying.

“His bone was so healthy and the density was so so impressive that he’s like the man of steel. It should have just gone through and through. It likely would have killed those standing behind him too.”

Mr Kolvet said what happened was “remarkable” and “miraculous”.

Read more:
Charlie Kirk memorial to be held in Arizona stadium
Analysis: Trump’s creeping control over TV

Memorial to draw 100,000 people

President Trump and JD Vance are expected to be among the prominent MAGA members who will pay tribute to Mr Kirk at the memorial event.

It will take place at State Farm Stadium, the home of the Arizona Cardinals NFL team, amid a heavy law enforcement presence.

President Trump has blamed the “radical left” for the death of Mr Kirk, whom he credited for helping him win the 2024 presidential election.

It comes as the death of Mr Kirk has turned into a debate over the First Amendment.

While they have repeatedly criticised what they claim are assaults on free speech, members of the MAGA movement appear to be taking a different stance when the subject is one of their own, launching attacks on people they deem to be making disparaging comments about Mr Kirk.

Dozens of people, from journalists to teachers, have already lost their jobs for allegedly making offensive comments about the podcaster.

Late-night chat show host Jimmy Kimmel was pulled from the air indefinitely by ABC following a backlash from the Trump-appointed head of the Federal Communications Commission over the comedian’s remarks about Mr Kirk.

The State Department also has warned it would revoke the visas of any foreigners who celebrated his assassination.

Lawyers for Luigi Mangione have called on a judge to block federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty against him.

Mangione’s legal team says the 27-year-old’s case has been turned into a “Marvel movie” after a failed bid by the US Justice Department to indict him on terrorism charges over the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson in New York on 4 December.

New York state judge Gregory Carro said there was no evidence that the killing, which took place as Mr Thompson walked into an investor conference at the New York Hilton Midtown hotel, amounted to a terrorist act.

But Judge Carro upheld second-degree murder charges, which suggest there was malicious intent – but not that it was premeditated.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi has called for Mangione to face capital punishment, describing the charges against him as a “premeditated cold-blooded assassination that shocked America”.

But in the new court filing, Mangione’s legal team argues federal prosecutors have “violated Mr Mangione’s constitutional and statutory rights” by “staging a dehumanizing, unconstitutional ‘perp walk’ where he was televised, videotaped, and photographed clambering out of a helicopter in shackles” on the way to his first court appearance.

The legal team, led by former Manhattan prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo, also claims the death penalty case has been “fatally prejudiced” after President Donald Trump commented on it on Fox News.

Despite laws that prohibit any pre-trial commentary that could prejudice the defendant’s right to a free trial, he told the network on Thursday: “Think about Mangione. He shot someone in the back, as clear as you’re looking at me or I’m looking at you.”

Read more from Sky News
Trump throws out New York Times lawsuit
Free speech warning after Kimmel taken off air
Songwriter killed in small plane crash

The defence team’s 114-page court filing reads: “There is a high bar to dismissing an indictment due to pretrial publicity.

“However, there has never been a situation remotely like this one where prejudice has been so great against a death-eligible defendant.”

Federal prosecutors have until 31 October to respond to the documents.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all the state charges against him, which cannot result in the death penalty and only life imprisonment, unlike federal ones. He has also pleaded not guilty to the federal charges.

He is due back in court for a pre-trial hearing in the state case on 1 December and the federal case on 5 December.

The 27-year-old was arrested five days after Mr Thompson was killed – when he was spotted at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, around 230 miles west of New York City.