Donald Trump has once again argued that people should be jailed for burning the American flag despite the constitution protecting free speech.
“I want to get a law passed. Everyone tells me, oh sure, 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, ‘Sir, that’s not constitutional.’ We’ll make it constitutional,” said Trump during a National Guard address in Detroit on Monday August 26.
The GOP candidate discussed the Democratic National Convention in Chicago which took place between August 19 and August 22, saying, “That was terrible, what happened at the convention in Chicago. They’re burning American flags all over the place and the fake news doesn’t want to show it.”
There was at least one instance of an American flag being burned in Chicago during the convention by pro-Palestine protestors, Newsweek previously reported.
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The 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Texas v. Johnson case established that burning the American flag is a protected form of protest under the First Amendment.
Trump has backed the idea of jail time for people who burned American flags before, dating back at least to the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests where he made similar comments during his presidential campaign.
During Monday’s speech, Trump referenced this topic, telling the crowd he stood by them during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd who was killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
After the protests, several statues of historical figures connected to the Confederate army and slavery were taken down.
“If I didn’t override what they wanted to do and what tradition is, those places would have been, we would have lost every monument in Washington,” said Trump when talking about the 2020 protests.
“I found there was a bill from the early 1900s. We don’t do bills like that anymore. They said, if you touch government property, statues, monuments of any kind, you will serve 10 years with no probation, no early getting out.”
In June 2020, Trump issued an executive order demanding the prosecution of anyone who damages federal monuments, and threatening to withhold federal funding if states don’t do so.
The order said, “It is the policy of the United States to prosecute to the fullest extent permitted under Federal law, and as appropriate, any person or any entity that destroys, damages, vandalizes, or desecrates a monument, memorial, or statue within the United States or otherwise vandalizes government property.”
In Monday’s speech, Trump also attacked Democrats for being “very soft” on criminals. It comes as both he and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris position themselves as the tough-on-crime option during the election.
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