Trump fires up Twitter with views on flag burning,
Suggests offenders lose citizenship
Although the Supreme Court has declared flag burning to be a constitutionally protected form of free speech, Donald Trump said Tuesday he still wants to make the practice illegal.
“Flag burning is completely ridiculous and I think you know that and I think the vast majority of Americans would agree,” his spokesman Jason Miller said in contentious interview with CNN Tuesday when asked about Trump’s tweet.
“But legal,” host Chris Cuomo interjected.
“Flag burning should be ille- gal, it’s completely despicable,” Miller continued.
It’s not known what inspired Trump’s condemnation of flag burning or whether he will call on Congress to attempt a new law banning it.
While the Supreme Court has upheld flag burning, Trump will have at least one appointment to that body and has a chance to alter the court’s ideological direction.
Civil liberties groups denounced Trump’s flag-burning statement, especially his suggestion that offenders could lose citizenship.
“The idea that the government could not only censor someone for engaging in politi- cal speech, but actually revoke a protester’s U.S. citizenship as a punishment for political speech is unconstitutional and fundamentally un-American,” said Lee Rowland, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said there was a bipartisan consensus that flag burning was offensive, but also that it’s protected under the First Amendment. “This is not the first thing the presidentelect has said or tweeted that President Obama disagrees with,” Earnest said.
Twitter had a range of views, many of them disagreeing with the president-elect.