Trump says flag-burning should be made a criminal offense, suggests one-year jail term as punishment
President Donald Trump said that people who burn the American flag should spend a year in jail while speaking at his campaign rally on Saturday, June 20, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Trump said he wanted to make flag burning a crime that should be charged with up to a year in prison. He suggested that Congress take up legislation to make it a criminal act. He said, "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," Breitbart reports.
"And you know, 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," Trump added while pointing to Senators James Lankford and Jim Inhofe. He continued, "We should have legislation that if somebody wants to burn the American flag and stomp on it, but just burn it, they go to jail for one year." It was just last year that Trump had supported legislation by Sen Steve Daines which would ban flag burning by passing a constitutional amendment.
We had previously reported that Trump had anticipated nearly 100,000 people at the Tulsa rally as tickets for the event had been sold out. However, when the event took place, less than the expected count of people showed up. Trump tweeted on June 15, saying, "Almost One Million people request tickets for the Saturday Night Rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma!" and it was believed that he was really looking forward to the Tulsa rally. Evidently, things did not go as Trump had hoped.
The hacktivist group Anonymous claimed that K-pop stans had sent out RSVPs for the event that had everyone believe that over one million people would be showing up when in reality that was not going to be the case. "The autonomous K-pop brigades have successfully sabotaged the #TrumpRally by RSVPing thousands of seats ahead of time. The operation was a success, K-pop wins again," read the tweet. "Those requests were literally from k-pop stans. All of which did not show up because they did it to troll the president and his racist a**," read another.
Trump was slammed on social media for his decision to hold a rally during the ongoing coronavirus crisis. Pictures from the Tulsa rally show that the Trump supporters who had attended the rally did not wear masks or gloves. One such social media user shared, "What kind of President holds a rally during a pandemic. This will be one for the history books. When the second wave of coronavirus cases hits our country, Trump should take all the blame." Another user commented, "The Tulsa Newspaper is begging you not to hold a rally! You are literally killing people in Tulsa by doing so. Trump doesn't care about human lives as long as it will earn him votes. He would trade a human life for a vote any day of the week." "I bet a million people won’t turn out to vote for you - even though they’re telling you they will," shared yet another.