On Tuesday the newly-renovated White House Rose Garden played host to a star-studded (at least, in Republican terms) event honoring Charlie Kirk, the slain Turning Point USA founder.
Donald Trump spoke at the event and presented the Medal of Freedom, the U.S.'s highest civilian honor, to Kirk's wife Erika. Her husband was killed last month by a shooter during a speaking engagement at Utah Valley University.
But much of the focus of Trump's speech wavered from honoring someone his eldest son counted as a close friend as he attacked Democrats and boasted about his administration's work to suppress crime in Washington D.C.
The result was a jarring and at times surreal speech memorializing one of his strongest supporters, and a man whom critics describe as an unrepentant racist and bigot.
At one point, Trump used his remarks to go after "far-left radicals" who he said "resort to desperate acts of violence and terror because they know that their ideas and arguments are persuading no one."
"They have the devil's ideology, and they're failing. And they know it, they feel it, and they become violent," the U.S. president said.
As he spoke about the supposed one-sidedness of American political violence, the president singled out Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee for Virginia attorney general set to face a Republican opponent in next month's election.
But as the top conservatives in Washington were gathered to honor Kirk on Tuesday a damning investigation into Young Republican clubs around the country was published in Politico revealing how pro-Nazi rhetoric and open calls for mass killing became commonplace in organizations meant to funnel today's young conservatives into junior political staffer positions around the country.
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