Charlie Kirk<\/a>, the right-wing United States activist and founder of Turning Point USA who was shot dead this month.<\/p>\nThe event is taking place on Sunday at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, which seats more than 63,000 people. Organisers said additional space has been arranged nearby to accommodate overflow crowds.<\/p>\n
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President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and several other Republicans will address the gathering, which Turning Point USA has called Building a Legacy: Remembering Charlie Kirk. Kirk\u2019s widow, Erika, who recently became the organisation\u2019s chief executive, is also expected to speak.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to celebrate the life of a great man today,\u201d Trump said before leaving Washington DC for Arizona, where Turning Point USA is based.<\/p>\n
In Glendale, Al Jazeera\u2019s Phil Lavelle said it\u2019s \u201cimpossible to say how many people are going to be here because this is not a ticketed event, people were just asked to register online\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we spoke to one woman, a few moments ago, who said she had no hope of getting in because of the number of people attending,\u201d Lavelle added.<\/p>\n
The Department of Homeland Security has classified the service as an event of \u201cthe highest national significance\u201d, a designation usually reserved for occasions such as the Super Bowl. Officials said tight security measures are in place due to Trump\u2019s attendance and the political tension surrounding Kirk\u2019s killing.<\/p>\n
Kirk, 31, was killed on September 10 during a university event in Utah. Police charged a 22-year-old suspect with murder, saying he carried out the attack alone and killed Kirk because he had \u201cenough of his hate\u201d.<\/p>\n
Kirk was a polarising figure who called for the use of tear gas, rubber bullets and whips against immigrants at the US-Mexico border; suggested Islam is a danger to American society; and claimed there was \u201cno factual data to back up global warming\u201d.<\/p>\n
The US right-wing viewed Kirk as a major figure in the Trump movement who played a pivotal role in building support for the US president and conservative causes among young people.<\/p>\n
\u201cSocial media plays such an integral role in politics, and Charlie Kirk was seen as somebody who really managed to pull in the youth vote through this, managing to leverage and use Tik Tok to spread his message,\u201d Lavelle said.<\/p>\n
Jennifer Nicoll Victor, an associate professor of political science at George Mason University, told Al Jazeera that the memorial was marked by \u201ca lot of rhetoric about Kirk himself, and a lot of Christian rhetoric \u2013 it\u2019s a little unusual to see so much Christian mythology combined with patriotism and nationalism\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the intersection where Charlie Kirk fit within the Republican Party and the movement he was building,\u201d she said, noting that \u201chigh-profile funerals historically can become lightning rods\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe political grief, and the conservative mobilisation around it, risk pushing us towards escalation rather than reconciliation,\u201d Victor added.<\/p>\n
Trump has been accused of exploiting Kirk\u2019s murder for political gain by linking the killing to what he calls \u201cleft-wing extremism\u201d despite law enforcement dismissing claims of a wider alleged assassination plot. His remarks have drawn criticism from opponents who accused him of inflaming political divisions.<\/p>\n
Kirk established Turning Point USA in 2012 at the age of 18. The organisation has grown into one of the largest right-wing groups in the US with influence across high schools, universities and social media platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump to address Arizona service for assassinated ally. Tens of thousands of people are attending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,1127,12,7922,3,10756,111,22509,21,19,22,20,25,1209,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-172656","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-conflict","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-gun-violence","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-obituaries","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-the-far-right","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-us-canada","22":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}