(CNN) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday posthumously awarded Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, saying he was entering the late conservative activist’s name “into the roster of true American heroes.”

Erika Kirk , Kirk’s widow and now the CEO of Turning Point USA, accepted the award on her husband’s behalf at the Rose Garden ceremony. Introducing the award, a military aide announced that the US honors Kirk as “a martyr for truth and freedom.”

Trump, who landed at the White House around 3 a.m. Tuesday after traveling to the Middle East, said, “I was going to call Erika and say, ‘Erica, could you maybe move it to Friday?’” But Trump said it was a “definite” to return in time for the ceremony Tuesday, which would have been Kirk’s 32nd birthday.

Turning to Trump after accept

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