MSNBC - A few weeks after winning the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump said he was prepared to take American citizenship away from those who burn the American flag, insisting there had to be meaningful “consequences” for such protests, even if the U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that this is protected speech under the First Amendment.
Once in office, the president largely forgot about the issue. In 2019, the Republican briefly endorsed a constitutional amendment prohibiting Americans from being able to desecrate a flag. And a year later, Trump said he liked the idea of a “very powerful flag-burning statute,” but for the most part, this was a White House afterthought.
In his second term, however, he has apparently decided to take action — or something resembling action. NBC News reported:
Trump signed [an] executive order on Monday aimed at prosecuting people who ‘desecrate’ the American flag, a third fact sheet said. That order, first reported by Fox News, directs Bondi to ‘vigorously prosecute those who violate our laws in ways that involve desecrating the flag, and to pursue litigation to clarify the scope of First Amendment in this area.’
“What the penalty is going to be, if you burn a flag, you get one year in jail — no early exits, no nothing,” the president said, adding: “You will see flag burning stop immediately.”
No comments:
Post a Comment