Bulwark Takes - Trump’s Outrageous and Illegal “Flag Burning” Order

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

Tim Miller and JVL take on Trump’s flag-burning executive order, the absurd “one year in jail” claim, and how even Barstool hosts are against it.

Hey, everybody, Tim Miller from the Bullwork here with my colleague, Jonathan V. Last, author of the triad newsletter, sign up at the bulwark.com, and subscribe right here to this feed, subscribe. We got some flag-burning stuff to talk about. It's, I can I just take you behind the curtain here for a second? I have an actual curtain right here. It feels a little dumb and silly to talk about this. Like, I've made a commitment to myself that I'm only going to be outraged about the things

I'm outraged about. And this is like Trump playing the hits from 1988, you know, like I'm going to, I'm playing an old culture war hit from. like decades ago. That said, I think it is interesting because it's like a tangible thing that people can understand. A lot of the Trump authoritarian of liberalism stuff,

it gets really sort of high-minded. And, you know, we start talking about things that regular bros don't care about. This is something that even the smooth brained among us can understand. And so as a little teaser about a clip that I want to play here at a minute. But before we do that,

let's just really quick watch Trump talking about the EO on how you're going to go to jail if you burn the flag now yesterday in the Oval Office. If you burn a flag, you get one year in jail, no early exits, no nothing. You get one year in jail. All right, JVL, before we get to the Brough's reaction, what, do you have any big picture takes on us? I mean, important to know that that one year in jail thing seems to have been an ad lib. It's not actually in the executive order. It's not legal. It's not in the, like, it's not possible. but Trump just said it because he was talking

and so immediately the White House like press office rushed out a yeah yeah yeah yeah you'll go to jail for a year if you burn a flag and like that how lawmaking works in the country the president just decides what the sentencing rules are for things like if I don't know if a Democrat gets back in next time

can they just be like the sentencing for you know whatever burning the pride flag is two years the sentencing for doing marijuana is now zero. Tim, this is how everything works in America now. Donald Trump says that Roger Clemens and Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame. He says that Cracker Barrel should go back to its old logo. He says that the CEO of Intel, the chip manufacturer, is bad. And then everybody just runs around to accommodate him because we're living in an authoritarian state. This is why

the Sandwich Man is a hero. And this is why these small tokens of resistance actually matter because they're silly in the grand scheme of things. It would be important for Cooperstown or Cracker Barrow, whose logo is terrible and Donald Trump's right about it. But it's important for them to stand on their own principles of a free country and be like, F you, no, I'm not going to do. What are you going to do? What are you going to do?

Come after me, raid my home like John Bolton. Come at me, bro. Come at me, bro. Come and take it. Come and take it. The reaction to this has been interesting. At the White House yesterday, one of our people, there's some gremlins running around behind the scenes here. You don't get to see them.

But one of our gremlins was down outside the White House yesterday. There was a veteran who did not like this and wanted to make a statement of freedom. I wanted to make a statement of principle that we still live in a free country. and that Donald Trump cannot buy fiat tell him what to say or do or think and put him in jail and so he burned the flag

outside the White House. I want to watch that for a minute. Do this for every single one of you American citizens. We burn this flag in protest to that president who feels that it's his right

to do whatever he wants, make whatever law he wants, regardless of it's Legal or illegal? All right, so I just, I just want to say, I'm like, I'm not a big flag burner myself. I don't, I also don't like care that much. Like, I didn't watch that guy. I don't know. Did you feel any feelings watching that guy burn the flag?

Were you like mad, were like defensive of your, of your team, of your, of your people at all? Not really, but I got to be honest. I, flag burning has never really animated me. Like, even, even watching clips of, like, back in the old days of the 80s. like when in Iran, Iranians burning the American flag, I was not pro-Iran or anything like that. I would just look at that and I'd be like, okay, whatever. Like, you didn't, people get really into flag stuff in ways that I just don't. You're not that jingoistic.

I'm a little more jingoistic than you, I think. I remember when I was a freshman in college, I went to see a concert. I hate to impugn them because I've seen a lot of concerts and I was smoking a lot of pot when I was a freshman in college. I'm like 90% sure it was the rich. that was the concert and they burned the flag on stage and I remember I was less like defensive of the flag

in my like you know and I was maybe a little bit embarrassed being a Republican in the room while they're burning the flag but it was what I was also I was kind of just like this is annoying I'm not here for this

so I understand at least that feeling of being annoyed sure I'm just like I don't like it you know it's not like I get all horny for flag burning but I'm like in terms of like any other protest I just look at him like great good for you whatever I don't care you know it just doesn't do anything for me

all right so there's that guy's out there the most notable thing I want to we can pull up the back of the video here is we don't we don't know if he was like arrested or what was happening but he was detained he was handcuffed he was detained for a while there on site

and so I don't know I guess maybe you have to do that a disturbance outside the White House seemed to have been handed over to the park service and charge the violation about starting a fire in a public park. So they're going to get him on like, oh, you can't, can't, no grilling in public parks. Right. We use the rules set up to prevent people from just doing unauthorized parks.

That feels like that should be a fine, though, not handcuffing. I mean, I don't know. I mean, what should anything? If you are burning a, I don't know, if you are in meridian. Hill Park in D.C. and you were burning, I don't know, a flag of the New York Yankees because you're, you know, upset. You know, you had strong anti-Yanky feelings. I don't, would you get handcuffed for that? I don't think so. I mean, you know, everything is who, whom, right? I mean, you get handcuffed if you're one of the bad people. That's how America works now. And this is a nice

transition into the thing of, I don't want to overstate it. I don't want to say that the man atmosphere folks are, you know, have turned on Trump permanently and like they've, the scales have fallen from their eyes. But this kind of thing does hit at their lizard brain a little bit, you know, and it's true about the masked officers. It's true about this. We have like these libertarian type guys that they liked that they're culturally conservative. They liked that Trump like made fun of the people. They don't annoy them. Right. to be able to say the R word and the P word again. I'm only saying R word and P word because I don't want to get demonetized on YouTube.

Okay, they wanted to say the P word again. And I was on with Kara Swisher today and she was dropping the B word a lot. And I was like, can I say that or is this like a lesbian thing where you can say it? Anyway, they want to be able to say all that stuff. And so they at least purport the claim about care about free speech. Sure. And they don't like this. I don't know.

This idea, there's just something. They don't like, they're not like anti-comp. But there's sort of like, there's the Blue Lives Matter types. We love comps in the megacotelition. But there's also like kind of the libertarian, like, I'm not, I'm not part of the Black Lives Matter protest crowd, but I don't want to cop fucking with me if I'm like doing a few to do a few bumps, you know, in my car outside the football game. You know what I mean? Who whom? Who whom?

Right. Exactly. So they have a little bit of skepticism. Anyway, that's a big wind up. This is the Kirk Min show on Barstool. And these guys reacted live to the news about the. the flag burning EO. And it's kind of a long clip, but if you enjoy it as much as I do, it's like a dessert.

Just just appreciate it. Watch the, watch them kind of just traverse the internal conflicts in their brain live. You see Trump signing an executive order this morning. No, for what? And what the penalty is going to be, if you burn a flag, you get one year in jail. This is real or is AI? This is real. How do I miss this?

What? Is this real? You haven't seen this? No. That's a busy day, but no, I haven't seen that. Yes, he's on an executive order where if you burn a flag, you're one year in jail. I mean, I'm not going to burn a flag, but, like, that's what America is about. That's freedom of speech.

Yeah, I mean, like, I don't even understand. Maybe I will burn a flag. I'll go to jail for a year. Yeah, you won't. Not 10 years, not one month. I don't like odd numbers, though. I'll do two years. Is anybody like, the Jerry's, the people have his back on this?

Oh, yeah, people are loving this. Like, Jerry likes that? Let me see. no one where that happens no one's going to actually arrest you for it like it happens primarily in democratic cities have happened in dc now they wouldn't arrest somebody for that maybe it's a war zone now so like i don't know well i mean you're you're a you're a military spouse so like if would your girlfriend care she wouldn't like it but i think she'd say don't you don't you don't need to arrest for it i mean yeah right i don't like it's a dick move but like i don't

that is nuts to me i don't unless i'm missing something i need gas cheaper and food cheaper. Is anybody doing this, by the way, really? Anyway, is it an epidemic of this going on right now? People see that like protests and stuff all the time. Okay, that's what makes this country, this country protest. It's a dick move. It's nuts.

My favorite part is like when he's like, is anyone even doing this even? Was this a problem that needed to be addressed? Last time we saw a flag being burnt was five minutes after the order went out, right? Right. You could just, you could just see, like, there is, there is. There's something, they don't like it, right? It's not, it's not just like, oh, I disagree with Mr. Trump on this. Mr. Trump's great. Like, it goes against their, their worldview in a way that I think is not nothing. It's meaningful. Yeah. I mean, this is what we're going to find

out about all libertarian-ish people who basically threw in with Trump. Not there's some honorable exceptions, but most of them threw in with Trump or at least one anti-anty Trump in 2024. And, you know, Trump has done nothing but expand the state and, uh, amalgamate power to his person. And we're going to see how many of these people, uh, really believe in any of the libertarian stuff or whether the libertarian stuff was always just cover for, you know, the Von Mises caucus wasn't really about economics. Yeah. I do know. The listeners who aren't familiar, aren't deep in the lore might not know, but you can Google it. I don't think the Von Mises caucus was really about economics.

What do you think it was really about, Tim? I think melanin, probably. Oh, interesting. I think melanin a lot. I think a significant portion of it was melanin. Not me, not all of it. The other funny little element of the clip that I liked was the main guy, Kirk, is like, he's trying to rationalize it.

You know, you can feel it in his brain. He's like, I'm a free speech guy. I'm like, this is, this is wrong. We shouldn't be the people that are doing this. You can see him trying to find a Trump rationalization in his head. And he's like, but they're not really going to arrest people over this, right? And then the other guy's like, Yeah, they just did that.

Yeah. It's like, D.C.'s a war zone now. And he says it kind of sarcastically. It's like, that's the other thing. I like that it was why I did a video on the Shane Gillis, S.B. Opening monologue. I don't know if you saw that, but like, he's mocking Trump on the Epstein thing.

And I think, like, moving these guys from, like, oh, Trump is, like, we need to mock the wokes and the people we don't like. To now it's like, oh, wait, Trump is the man now? And we kind of kind of got to mock this. Like, this is silly? Like, are people really burning flags? Is D.C. really a war zone? Is it really true that Epstein didn't do anything? Right?

Like, those things all add up. And maybe there's something. I don't know. I just feel like that is, I think, I just say it's important because I think that, like, those. kind of hits on Trump, I feel like, are more likely, maybe there, maybe nothing, you know, will change people's minds. I think it's more likely to appeal to some of the folks that went along with Trump 2024 that got, that laughed at that they're eating their cats thing than like this self-righteous stuff. Yeah. And the other thing that I think they're reacting to is that

if you read the entire text of the executive order, it's all phrased around the it. It's much less about jingoistic patriotism and much more about security. The idea is the flag burning is presented as something that is incitement and a danger to the public and as something that like the enemies of America are doing to target. It's all, it's all dressing things up and like, you know, oh, if somebody burns a flag, that's a national security thing, which is how a lot of the Trump stuff has happened with the Bolton rate, right? We're making America safe. That's why we had to raid John Bolton's house. And I think that these guys, I mean, there is like a TSA security theater to it.

These guys, I think are going to react to. Like, this is silly. It's also kind of like hearing you say it, it's kind of like the mockable stuff on the woke left of like where people are like words or violence. Right. You know, right? Like it's a little sensitive. It's a little over.

It's not very butch and masculine to be like, I'm, I'm deeply scared for my security because some hippie burned a flag, you know, somewhere. Like Jane Fonda is a big thrift. threat to my security. You know, what's different, though? What is different is that, like, the left words are violent stuff. Backstopping that was always just stuff like shame. And, like, you know, oh, we're going to get canceled.

That's a fair point. Backstopping this stuff is violence. State violence. And so, and in that way, it looks a little less mockable because these are things that people are saying because they want an excuse to commit violence. It is butch in that way, right? It's not honest. Yeah.

But it is, you know, this is, wow. This is how these movements work. And you just look through history. This is how it always is. This fascist movements are taking power. All right. That's Jonathan V. Last sign up for his newsletter at theblerc.com. We'll be back here soon.

See you all then. Peace.