If Donald Trump had his way, it would be against the law to burn the American flag.
The billionaire businessman and Republican presidential frontrunner made the comment in an extensive interview with The Daily Caller that covered a wide array of subjects. The interview will be published in sections over the coming days. (RELATED: See Part 1 of TheDC’s Trump Interview)
“Personally, I don’t think it should be legal,” Trump told TheDC, speaking of burning the American flag. “Let me ask you a question. It didn’t used to be legal, did it? I see more and more burning of the flag. Did it used to be legal?”
Burning the American flag was illegal for parts of American history, but Supreme Court decisions in 1989 and 1990 declared that desecrating the Stars and Stripes was protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution.
“People burning the flag, I don’t like them in this country,” Trump added.
Trump has said that he switched from being pro-choice to being pro-life after knowing a family who decided not to abort a child and seeing the child become, in The Donald’s words, “a total superstar.” But, as TheDC’s Matt Lewis has wondered, would Trump have changed his view on abortion if the child had become a total loser?
“I’ve never thought of it,” Trump said in our interview. “That’s an interesting question. I’ve never thought of it. Probably not, but I’ve never thought of it. I would say no, but in this case it was an easy one because he’s such an outstanding person. ”
Trump says if he is elected president he would live in the White House, even though he is “building one of the great hotels of the world right across the street on Pennsylvania Avenue.”
“Not because of a sense of luxury, only because of a sense that that is a very important symbol for the greatness of the United States,” he elaborated.
But wouldn’t it be a downgrade for a man who resides in a 30,000-square-foot New York City penthouse and a mega mansion — Mar-a-Lago — in Palm Beach, Florida?
“Well, the White House is smaller than both, but, no, the president of the United States should only live in the White House,” he said, before explaining that “Mar-a-Lago at one point was going to be the southern White House” for Richard Nixon.
“It was going to be the southern White House,” he explained. “When Marjorie Merriweather Post and E. F. Hutton, who built it, when she died, she left it to the United States government to be the southern White House. And President Nixon loved it, but he was tied up with a thing called Watergate at the time.”
So a President Trump wouldn’t revive the idea of Mar-a-Lago becoming the winter White House?
“Now it’s probably the most successful club anywhere in the world,” Trump said. “I think it would be hard to do now because the club is so successful that I think it would not be good. I don’t think my members would appreciate that.”
Check back with TheDC over the coming days to see the rest of our interview with Donald Trump.