Michael Knowles' Full Speech at This Is the Turning Point Tour Kickoff

[00:00] Thank you very much.

[00:02] Thank you very much.

[00:05] [Applause]

[00:08] Thank you to all of you for being here

[00:10] tonight. This event was originally

[00:13] supposed to be a conversation between me

[00:15] and Charlie. Now it will be a

[00:18] conversation about Charlie. It will be a

[00:21] conversation about his life and what his

[00:23] assassination means for our country. The

[00:26] enemies of civilization, the assassin,

[00:29] as well as the people who excused and

[00:31] cheered him on, thought that they could

[00:34] stop Charlie Kirk's movement. In

[00:36] reality, they have not even stopped his

[00:38] lecture tour.

[00:40] [Applause]

[00:51] I would like to begin if you would

[00:52] indulge me with a prayer. Uh Charlie had

[00:55] a great affinity for St. Michael the

[00:56] Archangel and I think the St. Michael

[00:59] prayer speaks especially to our moment

[01:02] in the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. St.

[01:04] Michael the Archangel, defend us in

[01:06] battle be our defense against the

[01:08] wickedness and snares of the devil. May

[01:10] God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do

[01:13] thou, O prince of the heavenly host, by

[01:15] the power of God, thrust into hell Satan

[01:18] and all the evil spirits who prowl about

[01:20] the world seeking the ruin of souls.

[01:25] 12 days ago, a ruined soul assassinated

[01:29] one of the brightest figures of our

[01:31] generation. And when I say bright, I am

[01:34] not just talking about Charlie's

[01:36] rhetorical skills, which had surpassed

[01:38] just about every public figure around.

[01:41] And I don't just mean his political

[01:43] genius, which led an 18-year-old kid to

[01:47] found the most significant cultural

[01:50] institution on the American right. 18

[01:53] years old and and which led through all

[01:55] of his political achievements to the

[01:58] president, the vice president, the

[02:00] secretary of state, among others, to our

[02:02] our entire government showing up to his

[02:04] beautiful memorial service yesterday. I

[02:07] am not talking about any of Charlie's

[02:11] accomplishments, be they in

[02:13] broadcasting, publishing, coalition

[02:16] building, debate, or any of the other

[02:18] many things that Charlie had mastered.

[02:21] Charlie's brightness came not primarily

[02:24] from his professional accomplishments.

[02:27] They came from his character. You did

[02:30] not have to be a personal friend of his

[02:31] to notice it. You could see it in

[02:34] everything he did. There was simply a

[02:37] light and a levity to the man. And it

[02:40] was constant. Even when he was stressed,

[02:43] even when he was arguing, which was

[02:45] frequent, even when he suffered

[02:48] setbacks,

[02:50] that light and that levity stem from one

[02:52] fact. Charlie's savior lives.

[03:06] We're mourning Charlie right now. And I

[03:09] think it's right to mourn, Charlie. I

[03:11] think it's right to grieve. I have no

[03:14] use for the happy clappy kind of modern

[03:16] religion that tells us we can't be sad

[03:18] when our friend dies simply because we

[03:21] have faith in his salvation. Death is

[03:24] bad. Murder is bad.

[03:29] People who commit murder need to be

[03:30] punished. People who celebrate murder

[03:33] need to be punished, too.

[03:36] [Applause]

[03:46] Death reminds us that something has gone

[03:48] wrong. Death was not part of the

[03:51] original plan. Jesus wept at the death

[03:54] of his friend just moments before he

[03:56] raised him from the dead.

[03:58] We can know that in everything, God

[04:01] works for good with those who love him,

[04:03] who are called according to his purpose,

[04:05] while still recognizing the difference

[04:07] between good and evil. We can entrust

[04:10] Charlie's soul to our Lord Jesus Christ

[04:12] as Charlie always entrusted himself,

[04:15] while still knowing that his assassin

[04:18] took something from us that he didn't

[04:20] have to take.

[04:22] What the assassin took was not even

[04:24] Charlie. He could not have taken

[04:26] Charlie. Charlie belongs to God as do we

[04:29] all. What the assassin took from us more

[04:32] precisely is what we imagined Charlie's

[04:35] future would be. That is part of what

[04:38] makes death so shocking. The realization

[04:41] that our plans are not guaranteed. Man

[04:44] plans and God laughs.

[04:47] But we say he was going to do this. Oh,

[04:51] she was going to do that. We were going

[04:54] to speak at the University of Minnesota

[04:57] together.

[04:58] We weren't actually. We do not have

[05:02] ultimate control over those things.

[05:05] Everyone who knew Charlie and many

[05:07] people who did not know Charlie

[05:08] personally knew that he would be

[05:11] president one day.

[05:13] We knew it. We knew it.

[05:24] But would is a conditional verb and it

[05:28] depends upon ifs that are out of our

[05:30] control. Charlie would have been

[05:32] president, but he won't be. In the wake

[05:35] of Charlie's death, many people are

[05:37] presuming to declare what he would have

[05:40] believed about this or that issue. Not

[05:42] what he did believe, mind you. what he

[05:45] would have believed, what he would have

[05:46] said if he had lived longer. This kind

[05:50] of talk is as absurd as it is unseemly.

[05:53] It is appointed for men to die once and

[05:56] after that the judgment, with the

[05:58] exception of Charlie's beloved wife and

[06:00] the people very closest to him. Those

[06:03] who would chime in for Charlie today are

[06:05] appropriating an authority that does not

[06:07] belong to them. It's a usurpation. At

[06:10] best, it is a waste of time. And one

[06:13] thing we all know Charlie never did was

[06:16] waste time. He worked about 27 hours a

[06:20] day, eight days a week.

[06:22] Charlie accomplished more in his 31

[06:25] years than most people could accomplish

[06:27] in many lifetimes.

[06:30] His most public accomplishments were

[06:31] political.

[06:33] His most important were religious. He

[06:36] wanted to be remembered for his faith.

[06:38] He wanted to help as many souls to

[06:40] heaven as he could. If you want to honor

[06:43] Charlie, go to church, read the Bible,

[06:46] pray, and do it right now.

[06:58] Do it right now. Do not wait. Now might

[07:01] be your only chance.

[07:03] Many people I've seen are doing just

[07:06] that. I saw it myself last Sunday. You

[07:08] will not be surprised to learn that I

[07:10] attend a rather traditional church.

[07:13] Smells and bells and suits and ties and

[07:15] all that sort of thing.

[07:21] One thing that means is that it's easy

[07:23] to spot someone new.

[07:26] Some someone who was just looking for

[07:28] the nearest church because he felt a

[07:30] sudden desire to be close to God.

[07:32] Someone whose Sunday best is usually a

[07:34] t-shirt and jeans. I saw a lot of

[07:37] t-shirts at mass last Sunday and I was

[07:40] thrilled to see those t-shirts.

[07:48] [Applause]

[07:50] I was thrilled to see those t-shirts.

[07:52] Next week they should put on a jacket,

[07:53] but last week it was nice. It was nice

[07:55] to see because it meant that people who

[07:59] had left the church were returning. It

[08:02] meant perhaps that people who had never

[08:04] been to church were coming for the first

[08:06] time and they were showing up because of

[08:08] Charlie. I was one of the hundreds of

[08:12] thousands of people who attended

[08:14] Charlie's memorial yesterday. When you

[08:16] count those who streamed it, I was one

[08:19] of over a 100red million people who was

[08:21] watching it live. I suspect all of you

[08:22] were too.

[08:24] [Applause]

[08:31] It was a remarkable event in many ways.

[08:34] Two things stood out in particular.

[08:37] First, Charlie's widow, Erica, gave one

[08:40] of the most powerful speeches I have

[08:42] ever heard in my life.

[08:51] I was sitting with some of the toughest

[08:53] politicians in the world. There was not

[08:55] a dry eye in the house. In just one of

[08:58] several arresting moments in her speech,

[09:00] Erica forgave the man who murdered her

[09:02] husband because Christ on the cross

[09:05] asked his father to forgive his killers.

[09:07] Because we all ask God to forgive us as

[09:10] we forgive those who trespass against

[09:12] us.

[09:13] It was amazing.

[09:21] At a time when half the country, it

[09:23] seems, minimizes, excuses, and even

[09:26] celebrates political violence, Erica

[09:29] Kirk gave us a glimpse of Calvary. But

[09:32] the second most striking part of the

[09:33] memorial was that the leadership of our

[09:36] federal government spent four hours

[09:38] proclaiming the gospel to the entire

[09:40] world.

[09:42] [Applause]

[09:56] That should not have been surprising. We

[09:59] are a country founded by people who

[10:01] called themselves pilgrims. We were

[10:03] settled by people who said that we would

[10:05] be a model of Christian charity. Our

[10:08] government was established on the

[10:09] premise that we are endowed by our

[10:11] creator with rights. Our national anthem

[10:14] declares conquer we must when our cause

[10:17] is just and this be our motto in God is

[10:19] our trust.

[10:21] Seeing our national leaders proclaim the

[10:24] gospel should not have been surprising.

[10:27] But it was because we had not seen it in

[10:30] a very very long time. Many of us had

[10:33] not seen it in our entire lives.

[10:36] The memorial was perfectly Charlie. On

[10:40] the one hand, it was about eternity,

[10:42] about the truths that transcend all ages

[10:45] and places. On the other hand, it was

[10:49] eminently political, temporal, local,

[10:53] particular.

[10:55] And there is no contradiction between

[10:56] the two because we are all both of those

[11:00] things. We are souls which are eternal,

[11:02] and we're bodies, which are temporal.

[11:05] People tend to fall into one of two

[11:07] errors on this subject today. They

[11:10] either think that politics is

[11:11] everything, more important than family,

[11:14] more important than morality, so

[11:16] important we murder people over

[11:18] disagreements,

[11:19] or they think that politics is nothing,

[11:23] that we should ignore policy fights and

[11:25] debates and keep our pure and precious

[11:28] hands from being sullied in the muck of

[11:31] practical politics.

[11:33] Charlie understood that both errors miss

[11:36] the mark.

[11:37] That we need to keep our eyes on eternal

[11:39] things. That we're never quite at home

[11:41] in this world because we are pilgrims on

[11:44] our way to the heavenly Jerusalem.

[11:47] But also that we are political creatures

[11:50] in space and time. which means that we

[11:52] have to do things means that our faith

[11:55] will look like something

[11:58] that we will give a certain shape to our

[12:00] political community which exists for the

[12:02] common good.

[12:05] So what do we do now? What do we do now?

[12:10] We should forgive our enemies trespasses

[12:13] and we should prevent our enemies from

[12:15] trespassing again in the future.

[12:18] Some people, some people seem to

[12:20] misunderstand Christian forgiveness.

[12:22] They think that it's somehow contrary to

[12:24] criminal justice, that it means being a

[12:27] wimp, that it means letting criminals

[12:29] off the hook, that it means anarchy. On

[12:32] the contrary,

[12:33] Christian forgiveness is about

[12:36] recognizing that vengeance belongs to

[12:38] the Lord who will repay.

[12:43] That's the first part.

[12:48] While criminal justice belongs to the

[12:50] civil authority which does not bear the

[12:52] sword in vain. Erica Kirk forgave her

[12:56] husband's killer. The state of Utah will

[12:58] inject poison into that killer's veins

[13:00] until he's dead.

[13:03] [Applause]

[13:04] [Music]

[13:09] There is no contradiction between those

[13:11] two things. Christian forgiveness does

[13:14] not demand that we allow the cruel to

[13:17] ravage the whole earth. It demands that

[13:20] we love our enemies. And sometimes love

[13:23] is tough. In our personal lives, love

[13:26] means praying for those who persecute

[13:28] us. In politics, love usually means

[13:32] punishing the guilty, both for the

[13:34] protection of the innocent as well as

[13:36] for the good of the criminals. No one

[13:39] benefits from crime, decay, and

[13:41] disorder. Not the rest of us and not the

[13:44] criminals themselves.

[13:46] We cherish what we call the marketplace

[13:49] of ideas in America. In the wake of

[13:51] Charlie's assassination, many are

[13:54] inclined merely to redouble our devotion

[13:57] to the free marketplace of ideas. This

[14:00] instinct, I think, misses a crucial

[14:02] step. We had a marketplace of ideas. The

[14:05] left shot it up. If we wish to restore

[14:09] the healthy exchange of ideas, we need

[14:12] to refortify the marketplace.

[14:15] Marketplaces of all kinds require rules,

[14:19] confidence, and common media of

[14:21] exchange. They require, in other words,

[14:24] order. Liberty requires order. You

[14:28] cannot be undisiplined and free. You

[14:31] cannot be ignorant and free. What we

[14:34] must now do is reassert order

[14:38] for the exchange of ideas for the

[14:41] flourishing of our public square for

[14:43] liberty. We must insist upon the

[14:46] acceptance of basic truths and moral

[14:48] goods not as the asmtoic goal of endless

[14:51] debate but as the axiomatic foundation

[14:54] without which debate cannot occur. CS

[14:57] Lewis called these principles the Dao.

[14:59] Others call them the natural law or the

[15:02] first principles of practical reason.

[15:05] We're in a university. If you've ever

[15:07] studied algebra, you know that you must

[15:09] begin with certain axioms. You have to

[15:12] begin with premises like a equals a or

[15:16] if a equals b, then b equals a. That's

[15:18] about all the math that I know, but I at

[15:19] least got that far.

[15:22] Those axioms are themselves unprovable.

[15:25] But if we don't assume them, we can't

[15:28] prove anything else.

[15:30] The same is true in politics and

[15:32] morality. We cannot quite prove that we

[15:36] should live in an ordered society. But

[15:38] without assuming so, we can't prove

[15:41] anything else. If our society is to

[15:44] function, we must foreclose certain

[15:46] antisocial behaviors and certain

[15:49] suicidal ideologies. We must stop, to

[15:52] borrow a phrase from Chesterton, the

[15:54] thought that stops thought. Practically,

[15:57] this means that we must stigmatize

[15:59] certain evil ideas and behaviors, and we

[16:02] must ostracize people who insist upon

[16:04] them. More practically, this means that

[16:08] people who persist in such disorder

[16:10] should lose their social standing. In

[16:13] certain cases, they should lose their

[16:15] jobs.

[16:26] With any political reform, we have to

[16:27] heir on the side of caution. But a good

[16:30] place to begin would be with those who

[16:31] celebrate the murder of an innocent man

[16:34] who simply wanted to talk it out. You

[16:36] have to begin from that point. You

[16:38] cannot maintain a hospital if the nurses

[16:41] seek to murder half the patients. You

[16:44] cannot operate a school if the teachers

[16:46] w wish death upon the students. You

[16:49] cannot run a restaurant if if the

[16:51] customers think that the waiters want to

[16:53] poison them. There must be consequences

[16:56] to heal this national trauma and to

[16:59] reestablish a healthy politics.

[17:02] Those consequences require clarity of

[17:04] vision, courage in our convictions, and

[17:08] an extraordinary amount of God's grace.

[17:10] I believe it can be done. You all who

[17:13] have come out here tonight, despite the

[17:16] threats, despite the hardship, have

[17:17] shown that you all believe that it can

[17:19] be done. The man that we honor tonight

[17:22] gave his life in the confident hope that

[17:24] it can be done.

[17:31] [Applause]

[17:34] We must never despair. We must never

[17:37] surrender to the forces that seek our

[17:39] destruction. and we must work tirelessly

[17:42] to ensure that this moment truly becomes

[17:45] a turning point for America.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. [Applause] Thank you to all of you for being here tonight. This event was originally supposed to be a conversation between me and Charlie. Now it will be a conversation about Charlie. It will be a conversation about his life and what his assassination means for our country. The enemies of civilization, the assassin, as well as the people who excused and cheered him on, thought that they could stop Charlie Kirk's movement. In reality, they have not even stopped his lecture tour. [Applause] I would like to begin if you would indulge me with a prayer. Uh Charlie had a great affinity for St. Michael the Archangel and I think the St. Michael prayer speaks especially to our moment in the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. 12 days ago, a ruined soul assassinated one of the brightest figures of our generation. And when I say bright, I am not just talking about Charlie's rhetorical skills, which had surpassed just about every public figure around. And I don't just mean his political genius, which led an 18-year-old kid to found the most significant cultural institution on the American right. 18 years old and and which led through all of his political achievements to the president, the vice president, the secretary of state, among others, to our our entire government showing up to his beautiful memorial service yesterday. I am not talking about any of Charlie's accomplishments, be they in broadcasting, publishing, coalition building, debate, or any of the other many things that Charlie had mastered. Charlie's brightness came not primarily from his professional accomplishments. They came from his character. You did not have to be a personal friend of his to notice it. You could see it in everything he did. There was simply a light and a levity to the man. And it was constant. Even when he was stressed, even when he was arguing, which was frequent, even when he suffered setbacks, that light and that levity stem from one fact. Charlie's savior lives. We're mourning Charlie right now. And I think it's right to mourn, Charlie. I think it's right to grieve. I have no use for the happy clappy kind of modern religion that tells us we can't be sad when our friend dies simply because we have faith in his salvation. Death is bad. Murder is bad. People who commit murder need to be punished. People who celebrate murder need to be punished, too. [Applause] Death reminds us that something has gone wrong. Death was not part of the original plan. Jesus wept at the death of his friend just moments before he raised him from the dead. We can know that in everything, God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose, while still recognizing the difference between good and evil. We can entrust Charlie's soul to our Lord Jesus Christ as Charlie always entrusted himself, while still knowing that his assassin took something from us that he didn't have to take. What the assassin took was not even Charlie. He could not have taken Charlie. Charlie belongs to God as do we all. What the assassin took from us more precisely is what we imagined Charlie's future would be. That is part of what makes death so shocking. The realization that our plans are not guaranteed. Man plans and God laughs. But we say he was going to do this. Oh, she was going to do that. We were going to speak at the University of Minnesota together. We weren't actually. We do not have ultimate control over those things. Everyone who knew Charlie and many people who did not know Charlie personally knew that he would be president one day. We knew it. We knew it. But would is a conditional verb and it depends upon ifs that are out of our control. Charlie would have been president, but he won't be. In the wake of Charlie's death, many people are presuming to declare what he would have believed about this or that issue. Not what he did believe, mind you. what he would have believed, what he would have said if he had lived longer. This kind of talk is as absurd as it is unseemly. It is appointed for men to die once and after that the judgment, with the exception of Charlie's beloved wife and the people very closest to him. Those who would chime in for Charlie today are appropriating an authority that does not belong to them. It's a usurpation. At best, it is a waste of time. And one thing we all know Charlie never did was waste time. He worked about 27 hours a day, eight days a week. Charlie accomplished more in his 31 years than most people could accomplish in many lifetimes. His most public accomplishments were political. His most important were religious. He wanted to be remembered for his faith. He wanted to help as many souls to heaven as he could. If you want to honor Charlie, go to church, read the Bible, pray, and do it right now. Do it right now. Do not wait. Now might be your only chance. Many people I've seen are doing just that. I saw it myself last Sunday. You will not be surprised to learn that I attend a rather traditional church. Smells and bells and suits and ties and all that sort of thing. One thing that means is that it's easy to spot someone new. Some someone who was just looking for the nearest church because he felt a sudden desire to be close to God. Someone whose Sunday best is usually a t-shirt and jeans. I saw a lot of t-shirts at mass last Sunday and I was thrilled to see those t-shirts. [Applause] I was thrilled to see those t-shirts. Next week they should put on a jacket, but last week it was nice. It was nice to see because it meant that people who had left the church were returning. It meant perhaps that people who had never been to church were coming for the first time and they were showing up because of Charlie. I was one of the hundreds of thousands of people who attended Charlie's memorial yesterday. When you count those who streamed it, I was one of over a 100red million people who was watching it live. I suspect all of you were too. [Applause] It was a remarkable event in many ways. Two things stood out in particular. First, Charlie's widow, Erica, gave one of the most powerful speeches I have ever heard in my life. I was sitting with some of the toughest politicians in the world. There was not a dry eye in the house. In just one of several arresting moments in her speech, Erica forgave the man who murdered her husband because Christ on the cross asked his father to forgive his killers. Because we all ask God to forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us. It was amazing. At a time when half the country, it seems, minimizes, excuses, and even celebrates political violence, Erica Kirk gave us a glimpse of Calvary. But the second most striking part of the memorial was that the leadership of our federal government spent four hours proclaiming the gospel to the entire world. [Applause] That should not have been surprising. We are a country founded by people who called themselves pilgrims. We were settled by people who said that we would be a model of Christian charity. Our government was established on the premise that we are endowed by our creator with rights. Our national anthem declares conquer we must when our cause is just and this be our motto in God is our trust. Seeing our national leaders proclaim the gospel should not have been surprising. But it was because we had not seen it in a very very long time. Many of us had not seen it in our entire lives. The memorial was perfectly Charlie. On the one hand, it was about eternity, about the truths that transcend all ages and places. On the other hand, it was eminently political, temporal, local, particular. And there is no contradiction between the two because we are all both of those things. We are souls which are eternal, and we're bodies, which are temporal. People tend to fall into one of two errors on this subject today. They either think that politics is everything, more important than family, more important than morality, so important we murder people over disagreements, or they think that politics is nothing, that we should ignore policy fights and debates and keep our pure and precious hands from being sullied in the muck of practical politics. Charlie understood that both errors miss the mark. That we need to keep our eyes on eternal things. That we're never quite at home in this world because we are pilgrims on our way to the heavenly Jerusalem. But also that we are political creatures in space and time. which means that we have to do things means that our faith will look like something that we will give a certain shape to our political community which exists for the common good. So what do we do now? What do we do now? We should forgive our enemies trespasses and we should prevent our enemies from trespassing again in the future. Some people, some people seem to misunderstand Christian forgiveness. They think that it's somehow contrary to criminal justice, that it means being a wimp, that it means letting criminals off the hook, that it means anarchy. On the contrary, Christian forgiveness is about recognizing that vengeance belongs to the Lord who will repay. That's the first part. While criminal justice belongs to the civil authority which does not bear the sword in vain. Erica Kirk forgave her husband's killer. The state of Utah will inject poison into that killer's veins until he's dead. [Applause] [Music] There is no contradiction between those two things. Christian forgiveness does not demand that we allow the cruel to ravage the whole earth. It demands that we love our enemies. And sometimes love is tough. In our personal lives, love means praying for those who persecute us. In politics, love usually means punishing the guilty, both for the protection of the innocent as well as for the good of the criminals. No one benefits from crime, decay, and disorder. Not the rest of us and not the criminals themselves. We cherish what we call the marketplace of ideas in America. In the wake of Charlie's assassination, many are inclined merely to redouble our devotion to the free marketplace of ideas. This instinct, I think, misses a crucial step. We had a marketplace of ideas. The left shot it up. If we wish to restore the healthy exchange of ideas, we need to refortify the marketplace. Marketplaces of all kinds require rules, confidence, and common media of exchange. They require, in other words, order. Liberty requires order. You cannot be undisiplined and free. You cannot be ignorant and free. What we must now do is reassert order for the exchange of ideas for the flourishing of our public square for liberty. We must insist upon the acceptance of basic truths and moral goods not as the asmtoic goal of endless debate but as the axiomatic foundation without which debate cannot occur. CS Lewis called these principles the Dao. Others call them the natural law or the first principles of practical reason. We're in a university. If you've ever studied algebra, you know that you must begin with certain axioms. You have to begin with premises like a equals a or if a equals b, then b equals a. That's about all the math that I know, but I at least got that far. Those axioms are themselves unprovable. But if we don't assume them, we can't prove anything else. The same is true in politics and morality. We cannot quite prove that we should live in an ordered society. But without assuming so, we can't prove anything else. If our society is to function, we must foreclose certain antisocial behaviors and certain suicidal ideologies. We must stop, to borrow a phrase from Chesterton, the thought that stops thought. Practically, this means that we must stigmatize certain evil ideas and behaviors, and we must ostracize people who insist upon them. More practically, this means that people who persist in such disorder should lose their social standing. In certain cases, they should lose their jobs. With any political reform, we have to heir on the side of caution. But a good place to begin would be with those who celebrate the murder of an innocent man who simply wanted to talk it out. You have to begin from that point. You cannot maintain a hospital if the nurses seek to murder half the patients. You cannot operate a school if the teachers w wish death upon the students. You cannot run a restaurant if if the customers think that the waiters want to poison them. There must be consequences to heal this national trauma and to reestablish a healthy politics. Those consequences require clarity of vision, courage in our convictions, and an extraordinary amount of God's grace. I believe it can be done. You all who have come out here tonight, despite the threats, despite the hardship, have shown that you all believe that it can be done. The man that we honor tonight gave his life in the confident hope that it can be done. [Applause] We must never despair. We must never surrender to the forces that seek our destruction. and we must work tirelessly to ensure that this moment truly becomes a turning point for America.