President Donald Trump claims that in one of his final conversations with Charlie Kirk, the late Turning Point USA co-founder asked him to “save Chicago.” Some people are not so convinced this actually happened, and also commented on how it seemed like a strange thing to talk about during a memorial service.
On Sunday, September 21, Trump spoke to a crowd at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona and to a TV audience during Kirk’s memorial service. Toward the beginning of his 45-minute eulogy, Trump criticized the city of Chicago, much like has in the past. While the topic might not seem particularly relevant to Kirk’s memorial service, Trump claimed that it came up during one of his last conversations with Kirk. “He was an all-American in everything he did and one of the last things he said to me is, ‘Please sir, save Chicago,'” Trump claimed.
Then, Trump suggested that he is going to fulfill Kirk’s alleged wishes. “We’re gonna do that, we’re gonna save Chicago from horrible crime,” he said. Trump also went on to criticize Illinois governor JB Pritzker. “You have an incompetent governor who thinks it’s OK when 11 people get murdered over the weekend,” he said, per Politico. “He says he’s got crime [under control]. No, they don’t have it under control, but we’ll have it under control very quickly.”
Elsewhere in his speech, Trump spoke about how he’s “so proud of Washington, D.C.” He continued with, “Now we’re going into Memphis, and we’ll get that one straightened out fast. And then we’re going into some others, but we’re going to go do Chicago, and we’re going to have Charlie very much in mind when we go into Chicago, and we’ll get that one straight.”
But critics are skeptical that this conversation ever even happened. “He’s lying whenever the story involves the whole use of ‘sir’ in the tale,” one critic wrote on Reddit. Several others said the same thing, with of them writing, “‘Please, sir…’ = a tell that he is lying. Whenever he does the ‘sir’ thing whatever he’s saying is completely made up.”
A third person wrote, “His last words to Drump ‘Please sir, save Chicago’ … of all the [expletive] that never happened, this never happened the most!”
Regardless of whether the conversation happened or not, people were also confused about why Trump’s speech at the memorial service sounded more like one he would give at a campaign rally. “That was a campaign speech sprinkled in with ‘Charlie said it to me,'” someone observed. Because the eulogy reminded them of Trump’s typical rally speeches, some people found it “weird” and disrespectful. “This is suppose to be a man’s eulogy?” another person questioned. “All the people he loved & looked up to have been making a mockery of his death.”
During his speech, Trump also described Kirk as a “great American hero” and a “martyr.” He said, “He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them.”
