President Donald Trump has now repeatedly called for a prison sentence to be created to deal with protesters who burn the American flag, something that many online have taken to mean the president could push back against the Supreme Court-demanded non-punishment of those who desecrate the flag and crack down on those who don’t show respect for America.
As background, flag burning was made a form of protected speech by the Supreme Court in 1989, when SCOTUS ruled in a 5-4 decision in the case Texas v. Johnson that burning an American flag in a protest, as Texas was attempting to punish with prison time, is a form of speech that is protected by the 1st Amendment to the Constitution. Thus, SOCTUS determined on the basis of that finding that punishment of flag burning is not constitutional, though there can still be ordinances that prevent burning anything in public.
President Trump has now repeatedly voiced disagreement with that ruling and the state of things created by it, particularly in the wake of riots conducted in large part by foreign nationals living in America, such as the early summer of 2025 Los Angeles immigration riots, that feature the burning of American flags.
Amongst those times in which President Trump spoke about punishing flag burners was his June of 2025 speech in Fort Bragg ahead of the Army’s 250th birthday parade in DC. In that speech, which came around the same time as the flag-burning LA riots and the related “No Kings” protests, the president insisted that those who don’t respect the flag should go to jail.
He said, commenting on those riots and the need to punish flag-burners for what they do to Old Glory, “They proudly carry flags of other countries, but they don’t carry the American flag. They only burn it. People that burn the American flag should go to jail for one year. And we’ll see if we can get that done.”
Additionally, during that same part of the speech, he slammed the “attacks of a vicious and violent mob.” Further, he hammered what he referred to as an “invasion and Third World lawlessness,” saying he won’t allow LA to be taken by a “foreign enemy.” He added, commenting directly on what the troops are there for, “We will liberate Los Angeles and make it free, clean and safe again.”
Watch him here:
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President Trump pushed much the same message on the campaign trail. At one point, for example, he said, “Burning the American flag, I want to get a law passed … you burn an American flag you go to jail for one year. You gotta do it.” He continued, “We gotta do it. They say it’s not constitutional. They say, ‘Sir, that’s unconstitutional.’ We’ll make it constitutional.” He added, “You burn an American flag, you’ll go to jail for one year.”
In another campaign trail incident, this one in July of 2024, the president pushed much the same idea, declaring on Fox News, “Now, people will say, ‘Oh, it’s unconstitutional.’ Those are stupid people. Those are stupid people that say that. We have to work in Congress to get a one-year jail sentence.”
Watch him call for the punishment of flag burners on the campaign trail here: