June 15, 2019

The White House Sent the Weirdest Flag Day Tweet—and the Internet Can’t Stop Laughing

“Michael Cohen just wrote that flag a check for $130k.”

Chris O'Meara/AP

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June 14 was Flag Day, a minor holiday that was established by Woodrow Wilson in 1916 to celebrate the day in 1777 that the Continental Congress made the stars and stripes the official American flag. In honor of the event, the White House Twitter account posted this celebratory tweet:

The photo, highlighting the moment President Donald Trump hugged the American flag at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March, triggered a cascade of outrage and hilarity from politicians, commentators, and professional comedians on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and TBS’ Full Frontal, some describing the tweet as “weird” and “not what Betsy Ross intended.” 

The almost universally critical responses apparently didn’t deter the president from invoking Flag Day again on Saturday, when he tweeted support for a proposed bill from Sen. Steve Daines’ (R-Mont.)—who introduced similar legislation in in 2017 and 2018—  that would prevent the “physical desecration” of the American flag. This is a cherished issue for Trump, who has called for punishment for burning the American symbol. Shortly after the 2016 election, he tweeted, “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag – if they do, there must be consequences – perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!” 

 

Trump didn’t respond, much less acknowledge, to the avalanche of criticism for having his aggressive embrace of the flag as the official White House acknowledgment of the holiday. But the criticism just kept coming:

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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