Save America Movement is featured the New York Times
September 19, 2025
The ad opens with a montage of Republicans blaming the left and Democrats for Charlie Kirk’s killing last week, then flashes to Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, threatening to “take away your freedom.” The conclusion leaves no room for interpretation: “This all leads to fascism.”
It is the very thing Trump and his allies have been warning political opponents not to do.
The ad comes from a new group, the Save America Movement, whose leaders say they want to fight Trump with what they call “counter-propaganda.” Two of its leaders — Mary Corcoran, a former public relations executive and Steve Schmidt, a former top aide to John McCain who co-founded (and later left) the anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project — are not currently impressed with either party.
They view Trump’s Republican Party with utter contempt, and fault Democrats for failing to push back effectively on what they see as an existential threat to democracy in Trump’s efforts to stifle speech he doesn’t like and target political opponents for punishment.
And as the Trump administration threatens to crack down on groups that criticize their policies, the group is planning to release its “fascism” television ads on Fox News in Washington, D.C., next week. Another ad, scheduled to air in Texas this weekend, depicts a fictional universe where a schoolboy is forced to pledge allegiance to Trump instead of the American flag.
So far, the group has raised $4 million for their venture, though they hope to use location-targeting technology to spend efficiently, such as serving ads to military, immigration and law enforcement personnel who have or could be drawn into enforcing aspects of Trump’s agenda to “remind them of their ethical obligations.”
The group also plans to create “Liberty Vans” to patrol for immigration raids in Los Angeles and other cities. The vans will be staffed with a lawyer, pastor and camera operator to monitor and de-escalate the raids targeting undocumented immigrants.
In Washington, the group also paid for traveling billboards criticizing the administration and placed the messages in neighborhoods designed to get attention from Trump and his allies.
