Donald Trump on Monday vowed to “make it constitutional” to jail someone for one year for burning the American flag, which is protected under the First Amendment.
‘They were burning the American flag,” Trump said while he told a story about protesters during remarks before the National Guard Association in Detroit. “I want to get a law passed. Everyone tells me, ‘Oh, sir, it's very hard.’ You burn an American flag, you go to jail for one year. Got to do it. We got to do it. They say it's not constitutional. They say, ‘Sir, that's not constitutional.’ We'll make it constitutional. We're going to make it constitutional.”
Flag burning can be a divisive issue — a 2020 YouGov poll found that 49% of Americans think it should be illegal to burn the American flag. Seventy-seven percent of Republicans and 50% of independents agreed, compared to just 35% of Democrats.
But the issue is already settled law: The U.S. Supreme Court in the 1989 Texas v. Johnson case ruled that the government cannot punish people for offensive expression in order to protect national symbols, such as the flag.
