5 highlights from Trump's Religious Liberty Commission hearing

1. Event begins with a tribute to Charlie Kirk

The hearing began with a collection of video footage featuring Kirk, the late CEO of the advocacy organization Turning Point USA and TPUSA Faith, who was outspoken about his Christian faith. The 5-minute video showed a clip of Kirk proclaiming, “The more I study the framers and founders, the more thankful I am to God that we live in this country.”

“Freedom cannot exist without virtue,” he said in another clip. “Freedom will come after, and it’s happening right now, people go to church and give their life to God. You cannot have a free society if you do not have a society that values God.” 

In another clip, Kirk expressed disappointment with the state of modern society, which has decided that “God is just a guess, judgment is the greatest sin, and self is God.” 

“We should bring everybody to the truth of the Gospel,” he declared. “We should bring everybody to the scriptures.” 

Members of the Religious Liberty Commission, as well as the first two panelists, also focused heavily on Kirk in their remarks. One of the panelists, Hutz Herzberg of Turning Point Education, detailed how Kirk became a “generous donor” to a Christian school he once led. Herzberg described how Kirk once told him, “Christian education means a lot to me because in fifth grade is where I committed my life to Jesus Christ, and that set the trajectory of my life.” 

“Charlie was a man that was strongly motivated by his relationship [with] the Lord in all that he did, and it obviously gave him the courage to … continue to do what he was doing with boldness, with courage, with commitment,” he added. “In the last couple of years, I cannot remember a talk that Charlie gave where he did not speak about his personal faith in the Lord.”