Trump Signs Order Targeting American-Flag-Burning, Desecration

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Aug. 25 that directs the attorney general to prosecute those caught burning the American flag or desecrating it in other ways.

“If you burn a flag, you get one year in jail,” Trump said.

“You will see flag burning stop immediately.”

“The people in our country don’t want to see our flag burned and spit on.”

As Travis Gillmore reports for The Epoch Times, the order directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to send appropriate cases to state and local authorities and to pursue charges in line with the First Amendment.

“We will do that without running afoul of the First Amendment,” Bondi said.

Burning U.S. flags as a form of political protest was popularized during the Vietnam War, leading to the Flag Protection Act of 1968, which outlawed burning, defacing, defiling, mutilating, or trampling the flag.

A Supreme Court ruling in 1989, Texas v. Johnson, overturned the law and declared the act of flag desecration protected as symbolic speech under the First Amendment.

“It was a very sad court, a 5–4 decision,” Trump said.

In that case, a Texas court convicted Gregory Lee Johnson of burning an American flag outside the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas after marching with protesters.

“The government generally has a freer hand in restricting expressive conduct than it has in restricting the written or spoken word,” Justice William J. Brennan wrote in the court‘s opinion.

“It may not, however, proscribe particular conduct because it has expressive elements.”

The president said the issue goes beyond speech, as it can lead to violence.

“When you burn the American flag, it incites riots,” Trump said.

We give Matt Taibbi the final word on this decision by The White House…

This is fucking stupid pic.twitter.com/djbixLAjpw

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) August 25, 2025

We cannot have First Amendment rights for me, but not for thee under Trump… we had that for four years under Biden!