In reaction to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before Congress on Wednesday, raucous anti-Israel protests erupted across Washington, D.C. Protesters vandalized statues outside D.C.'s Union Station with phrases like "Hamas is comin" and "long live the resistance." At one point, protesters replaced the American flag with a Palestinian flag and then burned the American flag.
In response to the flag burning, former President Donald Trump told Fox and Friends on Wednesday that he believed those who burn or damage the American flag should face jail time. Trump also brushed off those who would point out that flag desecration is First Amendment-protected speech.
"You should get a one-year jail sentence if you do anything to desecrate the American flag," said Trump. "Now, people will say, 'Oh, it's unconstitutional.' Those are stupid people. Those are stupid people that say that."
"We have to work in Congress to get a one-year jail sentence," Trump continued. "When they're allowed to stomp on the flag and put lighter fluid on the flag and set it afire, when you're allowed to do that—you get a one-year jail sentence, and you'll never see it again."
This isn't the first time Trump has called for imprisoning flag burners.
"We ought to come up with legislation that if you burn the American flag you go to jail for one year," Trump said during a 2020 rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. "We oughta do it. We talk about freedom of speech…but that's desecration," he added.
However, Trump is simply wrong. In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. Johnson that flag burning is protected speech. While you can still face property destruction-related charges for burning someone else's flag (as occurred Wednesday), burning a flag you own is protected political expression.
"If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable," wrote Chief Justice William Brennan in the court's majority opinion. "We have not recognized an exception to this principle even where our flag has been involved."
While D.C.'s anti-Israel protestors can still face vandalism charges for their actions on Wednesday, every American has the right to burn their own American flag—no matter how offensive some presidential candidates think their actions are.
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