Former President Donald Trump called for a one-year jail sentence for anyone who desecrates the American flag after anti-Israel protesters burned a flag at Washington’s Union Station on Wednesday.
“You should get a one-year jail sentence if you do anything to desecrate the American flag,” Trump said Wednesday on Fox & Friends.
“Now, people will say, ‘Oh, it’s unconstitutional.’ Those are stupid people. Those are stupid people that say that,” the former president added. “We have to work in Congress to get a one-year jail sentence. 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.”
The Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that flag burning constitutes a form of symbolic speech protected under the First Amendment.
Trump has backed jail time or loss of citizenship for burning the American flag and endorsed a constitutional amendment criminalizing the practice in 2019.
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His latest comments come in the wake of heated demonstrations against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington this week. Protesters in Washington tore down large American flags outside Union Station on Wednesday and hoisted Palestinian flags in their place. Two of the flags were burned, U.S. Park Police confirmed to the Hill.
House Republicans replaced the flags that night with the help of Washington police.
