Sports fans may have noticed over the past week that the American flag has been flying at half-staff in remembrance of United States President Jimmy Carter, who passed away last week at the age of 100. But Donald Trump is not all that happy about this, and he made a false claim to try to illustrate his point.
In accordance with tradition, the United States flag will be flown at half-staff for 30 days following the death of Jimmy Carter. This means that the flag will be at half-staff during the inauguration of Donald Trump later this month, and Trump is not happy about it.
In a post on Truth Social this week, Trump expressed his outrage that the flag will be flown at half-staff during his inauguration.
Trump claimed in the post that “nobody wants to see” the flag at half-staff in honor of the fallen president.
“The Democrats are all ‘giddy’ about our magnificent American Flag potentially being at ‘half mast’ during my Inauguration,” wrote Trump. “They think it’s so great, and are so happy about it because, in actuality, they don’t love our Country, they only think about themselves. Look at what they’ve done to our once GREAT America over the past four years – It’s a total mess!”
Trump went on to claim that this would be the “first time ever” that the flag was flown at half-staff during a president’s inauguration, which is simply not true.
“In any event, because of the death of President Jimmy Carter, the Flag may, for the first time ever during an Inauguration of a future President, be at half mast,” he continued. “Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it. Let’s see how it plays out. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump is verifiably wrong on this point. In fact, it’s happened in his adult lifetime.
Flags were flown at half-staff at Richard Nixon’s second inauguration in 1973 after former President Harry Truman died in December of 1972. So this situation is not without precedent.
Of course, this is certainly not the first time Trump has claimed something that is verifiably false, and it’s unlikely to be the last.
