Donald Trump brags that ‘we took the freedom of speech away’

President Donald Trump, who insists he’s not a dictator, boasted Wednesday that his administration had “taken freedom of speech away,” while defending his executive order directing federal prosecutors to target people who burn or desecrate the American flag.

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Speaking Wednesday at a roundtable with handpicked MAGA influencers, Trump was joined by senior adviser Stephen Miller, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and others. The meeting, billed by the White House as a discussion on antifa, featured Trump’s characteristic mix of grievance and defiance.

“We’ve made it a one-year penalty for inciting riots,” Trump said. “We took the freedom of speech away, because that’s been through the courts. When they burn a flag, it agitates and irritates crowds … we’re looking at it not from free speech, which I always felt strongly about, but from one that the courts never passed.”

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His comments came just weeks after he signed an August 25 executive order directing the Justice Department to “vigorously prosecute” acts of flag desecration and to refer cases to local authorities when appropriate. The order also instructs immigration officials to consider visa or citizenship consequences for noncitizens who burn flags and describes flag desecration as “uniquely offensive.”

However, executive orders are not laws, and flag burning remains legal in the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that flag burning is a form of symbolic political speech protected by the First Amendment, first in Texas v. Johnson in 1989 and again in United States v. Eichman in 1990.