--- title: Donald Trump: Flag Burners Should Spend a Year in Jail description: Donald Trump has tweeted that people who burn the U.S. flag should lose their American citizenship or spend a year in jail. canonical: https://time.com/4584614/donald-trump-burn-us-flag/ author: Kate Samuelson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-11-29T13:20:22.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:49:14.463Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump: Strip Citizenship from U.S. Flag Burners og:description: "Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag," he tweeted og:url: https://time.com/4584614/donald-trump-burn-us-flag/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta9d0a9a6975280ea/6988afe097cdff258e6aeb65/gettyimages-622101288.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Demonstrators Protest As Donald Trump Starts New Political Era And Republicans Claim Mandate og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump: Strip Citizenship from U.S. Flag Burners twitter:description: "Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag," he tweeted twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta9d0a9a6975280ea/6988afe097cdff258e6aeb65/gettyimages-622101288.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump Suggests Flag Burners Should Lose U.S. Citizenship ## Video: Protest Erupts Over Flag-Burning Outside Republican Convention [Watch (HLS stream): Protest Erupts Over Flag-Burning Outside Republican Convention](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/caSh5o73.m3u8) (0:28)  _Published 2016-07-20. Mass confusion erupted at a not-so-mass protest Wednesday afternoon outside the Republican National Convention in downtown Cleveland._ by [Kate Samuelson](https://time.com/author/kate-samuelson/) ## Kate Samuelson Nov 29, 2016 1:20 PM UTC  A demonstrator lights an American flag on fire during a rally against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump near Trump Tower in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. A demonstrator lights an American flag on fire during a rally against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump near Trump Tower in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016.Andrew Harrer—Bloomberg/Getty Images by [Kate Samuelson](https://time.com/author/kate-samuelson/) ## Kate Samuelson Nov 29, 2016 1:20 PM UTC President-elect Donald Trump has suggested in a [tweet](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump) that people who [burn the American flag](http://time.com/3907444/flag-supreme-court-history/?p=3907444?xid=tcoshare), an act protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, should suffer “consequences” such as a year in jail or being stripped of their U.S. citizenship. Trump’s latest tweet follows reports of heated, flag-related protests in Massachusetts after Jonathan Lash, the president of Hampshire College, said the institution would remove all flags from campus after students allegedly burned a U.S. flag on Veterans Day in protest of Trump’s electoral victory. Lash’s decision triggered strong reactions including from 1,000 veterans who gathered at the college on Sunday in protest, the [_Washington Post_](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/11/28/i-want-them-to-understand-how-bad-that-hurts-me-vets-slam-college-for-taking-down-u-s-flag/) reports. > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/803567993036754944) However, despite Trump’s statement that flag burners must suffer consequences, the Supreme Court ruled on June 11, 1990 that laws against desecrating the flag are unconstitutional and that burning the flag is an example of constitutionally-protected free speech. “The flag is so revered because it represents the land of the free, and that freedom includes the ability to use or abuse that flag in protest,” [TIME reported last year](http://time.com/3907444/flag-supreme-court-history/). Unlike Trump, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell from Kentucky, believes flag burners should still remain protected by the First Amendment. In [a column](https://votesmart.org/public-statement/184925/column-by-senator-mitch-mcconnell-on-opposing-the-flag-desecration-amendment#.WD11b6KLRsa) published in 2006, the year he cast a deciding vote against banning flag burning, he wrote that despite not “shar\[ing\] the slightest shred of sympathy with any who would dare desecrate the flag… No act of speech is so obnoxious that it merits tampering with our First Amendment.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4584614/donald-trump-burn-us-flag/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4584614/donald-trump-burn-us-flag/"},"headline":"Donald Trump Suggests Flag Burners Should Lose U.S. Citizenship","datePublished":"2016-11-29T13:20:22.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:49:14.463Z","description":"Even though the Supreme Court has ruled flag-burning is constitutionally-protected free speech","url":"https://time.com/4584614/donald-trump-burn-us-flag/","keywords":["Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta9d0a9a6975280ea/6988afe097cdff258e6aeb65/gettyimages-622101288.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kate Samuelson","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/kate-samuelson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta9d0a9a6975280ea/6988afe097cdff258e6aeb65/gettyimages-622101288.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Demonstrators Protest As Donald Trump Starts New Political Era And Republicans Claim Mandate","caption":"Demonstrators Protest As Donald Trump Starts New Political Era And Republicans Claim Mandate","creditText":"Andrew Harrer—Bloomberg/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4584614/donald-trump-burn-us-flag/","name":"Donald Trump Suggests Flag Burners Should Lose U.S. Citizenship"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Protest Erupts Over Flag-Burning Outside Republican Convention","description":"Mass confusion erupted at a not-so-mass protest Wednesday afternoon outside the Republican National Convention in downtown Cleveland.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/caSh5o73/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-07-20T23:01:41.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/caSh5o73.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4584614/donald-trump-burn-us-flag/","duration":"PT28S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4584614/donald-trump-burn-us-flag/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```