Trump Wants To Send American Flag Burners To Jail
President Donald Trump said that people who burn the American flag should be sent to jail for a year during his campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday.
Trump suggested that Congress should consider legislation and a Constitutional Amendment and make burning the American flag a criminal act. “We ought to do something, Mr. Senators…we ought to come up with legislation that if you burn the American flag, you go to jail for one year,” the president said and pointed to Senators James Lankford (R-OK) and Jim Inhofe (R-OK).
The president’s suggestion comes after the numerous reports of leftist protesters and rioters burning the American and Confederate flags in the recent weeks following the death of George Floyd. On Thursday, in Cincinnati, several protesters set an American flag ablaze outside the Duke Energy Convention Center.
Protestors say, “They didn’t have any feeling when they looked at the American Flag” before cutting it down and burning it right in front of the @DukeEnergy center. https://t.co/xufxcD7SCj
— Amber Jayanth (@AmberJayFOX19) June 19, 2020
HAPPENING NOW - City workers have started the cleanup process in front of the Duke Energy Center, after a night of long protest. Workers are repainting sides of buildings, pressure washing sidewalks, using street cleaners, and repairing damaged cameras. - @FOX19 pic.twitter.com/xxHAmqo5O3
— Payton Del Bradley (@iPaytonBradley) June 19, 2020
In a protest in Downtown, LA, protesters also staged a scene where a man held the American flag upside down on a stick, and another set it on fire. The moment has garnered over 750,000 views since its posting.
Protestors burning the American flag in Downtown LA #GeorgeFloyd @ABC7 pic.twitter.com/x8qt4dcA3C
— Veronica Miracle (@ABC7Veronica) May 28, 2020
Protests in other states have also seen the same scene where people gather a crowd and then sets a flag on fire. In fact, the burning of the American flags has spread so much that arsonists have also targeted homes in California flying flags.
“Two days ago, leftist radicals in Portland, Oregon, ripped down a statue of George Washington and wrapped it in an American flag and set the American flag on fire,” President Trump said.
Since last year, the president has been pushing for legislation that would prohibit flag burning and has supported one by Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), but it has been stalled in Congress.