Social media users have accused President Donald Trump of pushing fake news after he said his Monday executive order would mandate a year in prison for those found guilty of flag burning.
While Trump did sign an executive order on Monday calling for the prosecution of individuals who burn or otherwise desecrate the U.S. flag, the order itself did not specifically mandate a one-year jail sentence.
Readers quickly slapped accounts that spread this disinformation—including X accounts representing the White House, Karoline Leavitt, and the GOP—with community notes to add context.
The community notes stated that the executive order could be overruled by a standing 1989 Supreme Court decision, Texas v. Johnson, which protects flag burning as a mode of free speech protected by the First Amendment.
The misleading claims may have begun with Trump’s proclamation, as he was signing the order, that “the penalty is going to be, if you burn a flag, you get one year in jail.”
“What it does is incite to riot. I hope they used that language, did they?” Trump asked, seeming not to have read the one-page-long order he was signing.
“President Trump will always protect the First Amendment, while simultaneously implementing commonsense, tough-on-crime policies to prevent violence and chaos,” wrote White House Spokeswoman Taylor Rogers in a statement to the Daily Beast, and cited a White House-released fact sheet about the executive order. Rogers added that the 1989 Supreme Court decision does not protect those who use “fighting words” while burning the flag.
It is unclear if there will be a Supreme Court challenge to the new order.
