8-26-25 - 6am - Flag Burning

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Michael, are you allowed to talk about raw pickle bread,
you know, dil dough.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Oh, I suppose I could, But in the context, in
the full context of that story, it's still probably would
be unacceptable, even with the pause between dill as in
dill pickle and doe as in bread. What do you think, mister.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Producer, in the context of the story, it'd be a
bit odd. Yeah, I mean it's I mean, if we
were talking about me fifteen years ago working for Subway
and we had a new dill dough bread I mean sandwich,
I mean, you know, that could work there. But in

(00:50):
the aspect of the sports stories, it's a little a
little weird unless they do some kind of dil dough
hot dog.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, I think. So let's get started with burning the flag.
And this isn't exactly on point, but nonetheless I want
to hear I want you to hear CNN yesterday because
I want to tie Gavin Newsom and taking the bait,

(01:25):
so to speak, and then we'll talk about taking the
bait with regard to the executive order about burning the flag. First,
let's go to I'm sorry, not CNN, ABC News, This
is ABC News this Week and in.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
This nationwide war over redistrating. We've seen the two biggest
states go first, the biggest red state, Texas. You mentioned
those five additional seats. Yeah, and there's not a lot
of blue. They're squeezing that big time. Now what we're
seeing the opposite in California, where the Democrats under Gavin
Newsom are putting a map on the ballot for voters
this fall that could get them those five seats back.

(02:03):
If you look at the other states that might still
do redistricting this year, bottom line, it is advantage GOP.

Speaker 4 (02:09):
All because Gavin Newsom took debate.

Speaker 5 (02:11):
This is a massive ticking time bomb for the Democrats
as well because of the twenty thirty reapportionment in the
electoral College.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
The year is twenty thirty two.

Speaker 5 (02:20):
Studying the electoral college map, a Democratic presidential candidate can
no longer plan to sweep New Hampshire, Minnesota, and the
Blue Wall battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to win
the White House. A victory in the swing state of
Nevada won't help either. This is the nightmare scenario many
Democratic Party insiders see playing out if current US population
projections hold after every discential census, like the one coming

(02:42):
in twenty thirty, congressional seats are reallocated among the states
based on population shifts. Those seats in turred affect how
big a prize each state is within the electoral college,
or how a candidate actually wins the presidency. Across all
the possible scenarios in the nine states that would be
considered battle grounds in twenty thirty two, Democrats would see

(03:02):
a third of their current winning electoral college combination disappear.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
A third would see a third disappear. This is and
we'll finish the sound bye in just a second. This is,
by the way, from Eric Erickson's program. This is how
I think Donald Trump tends to lead by two methods,
Lead by example and lead by trolling. So that if

(03:30):
you and actually the whole Texas redistricting thing is a
combination of both show leadership in getting you know, hey,
Governor Abbitt, I got an idea here. There's nothing that
prevents you from doing a census, or doing or redrawing
your maps.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
You know, you can do that anytime. That's up to
the states.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
The states shall from time to time apportion you know,
their legislative or their congressional districts and legislative districts districts too.
You shall do that from time to time, not that
you have to do it on this time or that time.
So it looks to me like you've had enough of
a population shift that you could redraw your maps and
gain five congressional seats, and bam, they did it. And

(04:14):
now Gavin Newsom is out there because he just so
desperately wants to be president that he's threatening to further
squeeze the red out of California, which I quite frankly,
because it has to go back to the voters, that
may backfire on him. But even if it does not
backfire on him politically at the polls, it may backfire

(04:36):
him at the courthouse. And the reason for that is
because they have so already so tightly squeezed all of
the red out of California. In other words, they jerry
mander to the max. Now, if they jerry mander any further,
they come very close to and probably would have to

(04:57):
violate the Voting Rights Act by this enfranchising certain you know,
races or other groups that are protected by the Voting
Rights Act by further gerrymandering than they can, because they've
already gone as far as they can legally, and to
go any further is going to create problems. This tip
for tap between Texas and California is now a signal

(05:22):
to all the battleground states that, oh, you're starting to
lose seats, you're starting to lose population. You can redraw
your maps. And, as he points out, so.

Speaker 5 (05:35):
She wins the presidency across all the possible scenarios in
the nine states that would be.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Across all possible scenarios in the nine states that would
be considered battlegrounds in the twenty thirty two elections.

Speaker 5 (05:47):
Or battlegrounds in twenty thirty two, Democrats would see a
third of their current winning electoral college combination disappear if
population projections hold. However, when looking only at the most
feasible winning combinations based on voting patterns, the outlook is
far worse. Of Democrats twenty five most plausible paths to
victory in twenty twenty four, only five would remain, and he.

Speaker 4 (06:10):
Only five would remain.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
So you increase the amount of Republican congressional seats, you know,
those that favor Republicans. You increase those seats in the
battleground states, and you reduce their paths to an electoral
college victory. All at the same time, simply because of
Trump saying to Texas, nothing prevents you from doing this.

(06:38):
That's leadership and that's trolling. Then he did something that
yesterday that for a moment I took debit two Trump's
executive order on flag burning. It was amazing how much
outrage there was yesterday, including in my own head, because
before I read, before I read the executive order, before

(07:02):
I delved into the story, I thought to myself, In fact,
that was one of the things that we saw on
the television yesterday when Dragon and I were commenting about
how you know Trump Trump took questions for I want
to say it, doun half two hours or something after
signing the executive orders. I mean, he just sat there
at the Oval. He just sat at the resolute desk

(07:22):
and just took question upon question upon question. So all
I'm seeing is just, you know, the questions about other stuff.
And then I see that, oh, he signed an executive
order that bands burning the American flag. Now, if that's
all you know, and if that's all you read, then
I hope you have the same reaction that I did,

(07:45):
and that is, wait a minute, you can't do that.
You can't do that. But then when you read the order,
you realize, oh it, there was there. There are a
couple of cases Texas versus. Johnson, United States versus Iikeman.
Those are the two Supreme Court cases that recognize desecration

(08:07):
of the United States flag, burning and stomping on it,
tearing it up, whatever you want to do to it.
If it's your flag and you want to go burn
it and you're not violating some other law like you know,
open fires, or you're not well, as I'll get into
in a minute, but if you just take you want
to take your own flag and you want to burn

(08:28):
it in a protest, and it's not violating any other law,
that's freedom of speech.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
You can do that.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
And conservatives have consistently objected to that, whereas me, who
I'm considered to be quite conservative, even quite libertarian, always
thought that Texas v. Johnson and US versus Iikman, those
two landmark cases were rightly decided and that it is
protected speech, just as it is protected speech that I

(08:57):
can tell a congressman to f off. He may be
offended by it. But call somebody that cares. I don't
I have a right to offend my congressman or my
senator or my governor. Those two cases established without any
reservation whatsoever that flag desecration is protected speech. But here's

(09:23):
the executive order. The executive vorter goes only after those
times when flag burning crosses a line, and it crosses
a line into incitement or into criminal conduct, and that's
a distinction that matters. It tells the Attorney General to
prosecute acts of acts of flag desecration to the maximum

(09:48):
extent permitted by the Constitution. Now, I just want to
say right now that he has the authority to do that.
She has that authority. So this is a what I
would consider to be a fairly trolling type of the

(10:12):
executive order that is just telling the Attorney General that
it is the policy of the administration. This is what
we call statements of administration statements of administration position SAPs.

Speaker 4 (10:27):
So rather than just do a SAP.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
That says this is our position as the administration, and
so I expect everybody that's involved in law enforcement to
follow this SAP, he did it in the form of
an executive order, and the executive order pretty much just
allies with the law is already. So when he says
that I want you to prosecute acts of flag desecration

(10:51):
to the maximum extent that it is permitted by the Constitution.

Speaker 4 (10:55):
Well he's just restating the law.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
So that qualification is the crux of the entire executive Order.
It acknowledges, it doesn't deny. It acknowledges the constitutional protection
for expressive flag burning or flag desecration, to be more precise,
But it also now insists that if a flag burning

(11:22):
or a flag desecration function as an incitement to imminent
lawless action. Just as we know that speech can be
illegal when it is used to incite illegal activity that
is not protected speech, So when a company's acts like arson,

(11:46):
rioting or assault, then prosecutors should treat it as such.
So it seems to me that the executive Order stands
within the exceptions that the Supreme Court itself has long recognized.
Now let's go to Brandon murdertt the Ohio, another supreme
very famous Supreme Court every law student studies, where the

(12:07):
Court also drew a sharp line advocacy speech, even offensive advocacy.
Offensive speech is protected, but when it acts as incitement
to imminent violence. It is not protected. The fighting words case.
You know what, the fighting words case is Chplenski versus

(12:27):
New Hampshire. That's the case that recognized fighting words as
being unprotected. So Trump's order doesn't purport to create new law.
It's simply trolling. I think I find it funny by
instructing officials like the Attorney General, US attorneys and others

(12:47):
to apply those existing doctrines in cases where the American
flag is used as a weapon to provoke violence, simply
as a weapon to provoke islands.

Speaker 6 (13:00):
Think of how easy it would be to be a
damn Republican.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
Oh what should I wear today? This stupid freaking red hat.
What should I say today? I don't know.

Speaker 6 (13:08):
Just make sure it's cruel. Who do we listen to
that guy? Oh, the felon in the White House? Yeah,
listen to him and that will be fine. Now he's
talking about burning flags. He's gonna have flag burning or
whatever because he knows there's a hell of a lot
of flags with his picture.

Speaker 4 (13:22):
On it that are going to get burned.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
I don't think flags with pictures of Donald Trump on
it are somehow protected by either the Supreme Court by
Texas v. Johnson or the Ichtman case. No, I don't
think so. And also have you ever considered this that

(13:47):
why is it that? Just to show you the distinction here,
why do you think that sometimes people are prosecuted for
burning a Pride flag or Islamic flag or the Israeli flag.
I had had that discussion with somebody the other day.
It is not against the law to burn an Israeli flag.

(14:11):
But the case that we all heard about on the
news was reported, I think so erroneously as to be malpracticed.
The Israeli flag was wrapped around a Jewish individual wearing
a necklace with a star of David, some other you know, identificate,
some other things that identified her as a as a

(14:34):
member of Judaism, and they not only assault and battered
her by ripping the flag off her, but then burned it.
So the combination of those two events they found was
illegal activity. But burning your own flag in your backyard,
for example, or on your driveway or during a peaceful

(14:55):
protest still remains protected expression. You're not going to go
to jail that now. You might go to jail if
you are intentionally and you know you tear down a
flag off a flag pole. This is the example that
first came to my mind. You're protesting out in front
of the FBI headquarters or some federal building, and you

(15:16):
rip down the American flag, which is not your property,
and you burn it. That's a crime. The only conduct
targeted by this executive order is burning a flag in
circumstances that is specifically designed. There's men's ram, there is
an intent to provoke a lawless action, thank for example,

(15:37):
at a rally, where your intent is obvious by your
actions that you want to inflame this mob into violence.
That's the narrow area where the court has said that
the First Amendment does not apply, whether it's flag burning,
flag desecration, or speech. And that is the terrain that
Trump's order wants to police. So why the outrage. This

(16:01):
is what I find actually more interesting than all of
the contexts that I just gave you about flag burning itself,
because critics and even some supporters of Trump responded to
the headlines and not the text. It's a great example
of how our ADHD kicks in. And we're so used

(16:23):
to reading posts on x or little blurbs on Facebook
or wherever it might be, or just the headlines. Scroll
through whatever newspaper you're reading online and just look at
the headlines and maybe read the first sentence, and that's it.
The UK Guardian, the US edition of the Guardian, they
were all clapping about how Trump seeking to circumvent the

(16:45):
courts nineteen eighty nine ruling the Associated Press. It framed
it as a direct move to flag to ban flag burning.

Speaker 4 (16:54):
Civil liberties unions.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
The civil liberties groups, the ACLU, they all came down
and condemned it as if it criminalized all symbolic protests.
Even Jesse Kelly that I filled in before, blasted it
as unconstitutional overreach. You can't do that. I think Jesse
just didn't read the entire context of or recognize what

(17:19):
Trump was doing here. I don't think there were very
many that recognized all the repeated qualifiers in the executive
Order itself to the maximum extent permitted by the Constitution,
with consistent with the First Amendment, blah blah blah, blah,
blah blah blah. But those who actually bothered to read
carefully saw that the order is narrow. Perhaps I would

(17:43):
go so far as to say worthless, which is why
I not not worthless because if you intend to just
make a statement, well he did. He made a statement,
he drummed up a bunch of controversy, he got the
he played the media like a But and then those
who are drive by.

Speaker 4 (18:03):
Consumers of the media.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Concluding myself for a few seconds, because I thought to
myself doing the show, Yes, he can't possibly be true.
There's got to be more to it than what just
meets the eyes. And yes, indeed.

Speaker 4 (18:16):
There was those who bothered to read it saw that. Yeah,
it may be.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Truthless and just truly, but in politics, perception matters as
much as precision.

Speaker 4 (18:29):
And that's the genius of the mood.

Speaker 7 (18:34):
Michael. It seems to me, I remember, and I've done
it all my life. Every time a flag gets worn
out it is no longer useful or beautiful. We are
supposed to burn it to be rid of it. That
seems to be contrary to what Trump is saying. And

(18:57):
I don't think he could do that.

Speaker 4 (19:00):
No, it's no, No, you're not you're not listening to me.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
No.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
And in fact, if your flag becomes worn out, you
don't toss it in the trash. The smartest thing to
do is to find a local boy scout group and
the Boy Scouts will use it to practice the appropriate way.
Under federal regulations and guidelines about how to dispose of

(19:32):
an American flag by burning, it is constitutionally protected to
burn the American flag if you're doing it as an
expression of speech. Again, let's just say that I've turned
into an anti American communist. I've just had it, you know,

(19:55):
I just give up. I don't want to work anymore.
I just want free stuff. And I'm sick of well,
I am sick of all the politicians, Republican and Democrat,
and I'm sick of paying taxes and everything else. So
I decide that I'm going to burn the American flag
and protest. So I buy an American flag. I set

(20:18):
up my iPhone or my nikon to video myself on
my driveway as I curse politicians, drop F bombs about
you know, F police, F Trump, f F everybody, because
I'm mad at I'm mad at the entire world. And
then I take some lighter fluid. I got to damn,
I gotta buy lighter fluid too, because we have a

(20:40):
gas grill, so I gotta go buy a lighter fluid too.
So I got to buy a flag and gas lighter fluid,
and I squirted all over there is I'm cursing the politicians,
and then I strike a match and drop it on
the flag and go to hell. America got a hell
protected speech, protected speech. Now let's say that I'm not

(21:04):
I've not gone off the deep end, which is questionable
most of the time. I've not gone off the deep end.
But there is a group of communists that are marching
down the sixteenth Street mall in a u l. So
they're marching down the sixteenth Street mall and they're they're
just they're angry, they're they're really they're just on the

(21:25):
edge of you know, because of all the construction. There's
you know, construction debris, and there's probably some you know,
bricks and no pavers and other things, maybe a little
you know, uh rebar whatever.

Speaker 4 (21:38):
And and I'm.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
Like, yeah, yeah, let's go, let's let's let's burn this
place down. And and we walk past a dunkin Donuts
and the dunkin Donuts has a flag on its outside
on the door, and I rip down that flag and
I throw it on the ground on the sixteenth Street

(22:00):
mall and I and I started on fire, and.

Speaker 4 (22:03):
I stomped, and I go, yeah, let's burn. Let's burn.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Now that's illegal because I'm inciting violence. Inciting violence. Now,
many of you on the text line, I want to
know why it's a hate crime to burn the Pride flag.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
Real muck before we dive into that is we're walking
a little gray line here.

Speaker 8 (22:25):
If you purchased your own flag and.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
You're in that sixteen Street mall m a U l
U protests and your start burning your own flag rather
than stealing somebody else's, they're stealing something outside of the
dunkin Donuts. Now, now you raised, really you raise a
really good inciting that you raised.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
A great fact question for the prosecutor, because the prosecutor
is going to once just look at what happened and
what could have reasonably be perceived as a consequence of
my burning of that flag while there was an angry
mob walking down the m aul. And by the way,
I appreciate the fact that you picked up sixteenth Street

(23:07):
mall m aul. Oh, that's going to become a factual
issue for a prosecutor. Did the burning of the flag
precipitate the violence by the crowd? Was my intent to
precipitate the violence. They got to analyze all the video
they can find, the interviews they conduct, all the facts

(23:28):
they can gather to determine what my intent was, and
if my intent was, or even if my intent was
not to incite the mob. But a reasonable person could
have foreseen that the mob was on the edge and
that the burning of the flag would have been just
enough to push them over the edge.

Speaker 4 (23:47):
Yes, that's probably a crime.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
So this could similarly be too. Shouting fire and crowded theater. Yes, you,
as I've said, you can. Man, we haven't talked about
that in a long time.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
You can legally shout fire in a crowded theater if
there is a fire in the crowded theater, as you
should as you should do. In fact, you might be
somewhat responsible if you know there's a fire and you
just kind of like, oh, there's a fire here, let's
sneak out. You might be a little bit liable for
the deaths or injury at people for failing to alert,

(24:20):
you know, the fellow people and the I mean, that's iffy,
but I can see that happening in some circumstance. But
if you just decide that, hey, honey, you know what
this is a really boring movie. Let's kind of stir
things up. You know, we paid too much for the
popcorn and the diet cokes and everything else, and the
popcorn is kind of cold, and the soul called butter

(24:40):
really is just oil from Saudi Arabia that you spread
on it. And you're not happy with the movie. Let's
stir it up. So I'm gonna stand up and yell.

Speaker 4 (24:49):
Fire, fire, everybody run.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
That's illegal because there is no fire and I am
intentionally trying to start a stampede and people get hurt. Yeah, well, well,
not only would I be criminally liable for that, I'm
probably going to.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
Be civilly liable also because.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
I am the proximate cause of some people getting trampled
and maybe even some people trampled to death.

Speaker 8 (25:11):
Okay, so now we can move over to the Pride
fat flag.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
So if I know I want to hold the I
want to I want to take the Pride flag and
put it over here in a box for a second. Okay, Well,
I finished the stuff about the American flag because because
the the American flag, well not really the American flag.
I want to finish about the executive order and then
we'll get back to the flags. I know this is
difficult for some of you, because we're gonna you have
to hold a thought in your head for for more

(25:37):
than thirty seconds. And I know maybe many of you
haven't had your here. By the way, when I got
on the elevator this morning, Holy cale Dragon, I thought
I had to hold my breath. I was gonna get
high by the time we got to the fourte Well,
let's just say that I think I didn't see them
get on, but I assume that they probably got.

Speaker 4 (25:57):
On the elevator just just just before I did this morning.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
So let's go back to Trump for a moment, because
this is this is not the art of the deal.
This is the art of the distraction, buying Greenland, Canada
becoming the fifty first state. Every time people take the
bait they were to kull the notion, they fill the

(26:23):
entire news cycle with outrage. Meanwhile, what's he doing. He's
over here pushing what he really wanted to get done.
The flag burning executive orders seems to fit that pattern
almost perfectly. It sparked a fight that the Democrats could
not resist. I find it fascinating that Jesse Kelly couldn't

(26:43):
resist it now. I don't know what Jesse Kelly will
say about it today. Maybe he'll back off. Maybe I
don't know how. I need to go online and see
what he wrote on x see if he's deleted it
or not. But people will begin to back off, I
think once they realize that they been trolled. It's just

(27:04):
a fight that Democrats can't resist. They can't resist they
want to take Trump at face value for every single
thing he said. In fact, face value is not even
the right word to use, because when you actually read
the executive order, you realize that, oh, this is really

(27:24):
you know, we have a we have a phrase that
lawyers use, you know, restatement of the facts or restatement
of the law. What this executive order really is is
just a restatement of the law put in the form
of an executive order to hand off to his attorney
general to oh, maybe it really was to tell his

(27:48):
attorney general, I want you to look at when these
riots occur around the country. If there's flag burning and
there is a nexus between the flag burning and the riot,
then I want you to procute that I wanted to
quit ignoring it, or maybe the pride flags, which I'll
get to in a minute. The flag burning executive order

(28:10):
fits this pattern of Trump trolling, I think, almost to
a tee. But then you've got to realize the optics. Now,
I don't Here's where I disagree with Trump if if
he did it solely for the optics. Here is a

(28:30):
president this stands up for the flag. The elites are
calling him a tyrant for doing so, that he's unconstitutional,
that he's a dictator, that he's an authoritarian.

Speaker 4 (28:43):
And for the.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Reason I disagree with Trump for doing it for those
reasons is because it just reinforces that stereotype that that
indeed is what he is, and that drives me nuts.

Speaker 9 (28:59):
Well, Michael and Dragon, Welcome to Tuesday. Between waking up
to the first part of the show, something about bread
that I haven't well, maybe I've tried it. I don't know,
Dill No, it's interesting. And then this fantastic conversation about
when it's appropriate or not appropriate to burn the flag.

(29:20):
I actually have a situation that'll be coming up on that.
And then the sixteenth Street mall m A U l U.

Speaker 4 (29:33):
Was that was that summer?

Speaker 8 (29:37):
Sounds like some it is summer?

Speaker 4 (29:39):
Look at that?

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah, I thought it was summer. Can I miss her?
I gotta take the dogs in for grooming on Thursday.
Oh man, I miss her. I'll tip you more than
I used to. In fact, I'll start tipping you since
I never tipped you before.

Speaker 8 (29:52):
Yeah, she doesn't miss you at all.

Speaker 4 (29:53):
I know, not at all.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
And noticed she well, I haven't listened for a long time,
and I tune in today, and why she do? She
bitches about what we're talking about. Yep, good grief. I mean
dil and doe. So we got, you know, pickled bread
of some sort, and we got the mall, which is
you know, what goes on down there all the time.
And then flag morning, I mean what this is entertainment,

(30:18):
entertainment of entertainment tonight. It's entertainment this morning.

Speaker 8 (30:21):
Are you not entertained?

Speaker 4 (30:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (30:23):
Yeah? Or maybe some are just woke up in a
drunken slumber. Maybe that's what's going on, eh Trump's opponents.
This is Dragon and I were talking about this during
the break. Dragon's question is why do this? You know,
if we're trying to save money, how much money did

(30:44):
it cost? Lots of good.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Question, because all of this does nothing whatsoever. So I
was like, all right, now, my brain goes over to
the whole doge thing that we did, you know, a
few months ago. So how much did this cost to
do this whole spectacle of nothing?

Speaker 2 (31:00):
And my guess is whatever the salary is of the
little gleeb lawyer in the West wing that was asked
to write the executive order, the time that he spent
writing it, which is an embedded cost. So he would
either be flirting with the female lawyers or he'd be

(31:20):
writing an executive order. Either way, we'd be paying the salary.
So the cost is deminimous. But I do think there's
a political cost, and this is why I disagree with
this tactic. The headline readers, the people that rush called
the low information voters, will read the headline. They'll never

(31:42):
understand the actual content of the executive order, and so
it reinforces their belief that he is an authoritarian tyrant
leading us into fascism or communism, that he wants to
be a dictator. Then there is does this really Dragon's
other question was so did really accomplish anything? And if

(32:04):
I want to rationalize it, I can say yes, it
accomplished that. Again, going back to a statement of administration position,
he could have just sent a memo. He could send
an email, or he could have just told Pam Bondi
the next time they were having coffee together, Hey, Pam, listen,
this whole.

Speaker 4 (32:24):
Flag burning thing really bugs me. When they burn the.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Flag to start riots, or in the middle of a riot,
they make it even worse by burning the flag. That's
not protected speech, is it. And Pam Bondi would say, well, no,
under Texas v. Johnson or under the Aikman case, the
Supreme Court says that it is protected speech unless it
is used to incite a riot or other illegal activity.

(32:50):
And so she would explain the law to the president,
and the president say, well, that's what I thought. But
when they do burn the flag and it is within
the narrow exemptions of free speech, then why don't we
prosecute those And she could say, well, if that's what
she wants to do, that's what we'll do. Maybe they

(33:11):
had that conversation, and maybe afterwards somebody in the West
wing said, well, you know what we ought to do
is let's go stir up the Democrats and do an
executive orter on flag burning, because all they hear is
we outlawed flag burning, which, by the way, do you ever.

Speaker 4 (33:29):
Think about this.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
Trump can't write laws that's not part of the article
to authorities. He can't write regulations. He can't determine sentences,
he can't impose a sentence. He can't criminally charge anybody
that's up to his Law enforcement division.

Speaker 4 (33:52):
They do that.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
So again, it's just I think it's it's pig pins
stirring up dirt needlessly. Now when we get back just
a little bit of time on the Pride flag or
any other flag for that matter, thay tuned for that