President Donald Trump detailed his desire to punish people for burning American flags, which the Supreme Court has considered legally protected speech for over 35 years.
During what the White House called a roundtable on "antifa” on Wednesday, Trump discussed his administration’s attempt to circumvent Supreme Court precedent on flag burning.
“We’ve made it one-year penalty for inciting riots,” Trump said. “We took the freedom of speech away, because that's been through the courts. And the courts said, ‘You have freedom of speech.’”
“But what has happened is when they burn a flag, it agitates and irritates crowds,” he continued. “They've never seen anything like it on both sides. And you end up with riots. So we're going on that basis. We're looking at it from, not from the freedom of speech, which I always felt strongly about, but never passed the courts.”
In August, Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed they’d found a loophole to the long-standing legal protections for flag burning. They say they’ll prosecute people because burning the U.S. flag supposedly incites violence—a paper-thin justification to strip Americans of their free-speech rights if there ever were one.
As always, Trump’s rambling revealed his true motive: silencing dissent.
Walter Einenkel October 08, 2025 at 10:55PM From Daily Kos
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