Former GOP consultant Steve Schmidt pledged his Save America Movement would be flooding conservative news sites and MAGA websites during the upcoming midterms and the national election, reminding Second Amendment voters that President Donald Trump is no friend of gun enthusiasts.
“I want to tell you what Save America is going to do about this,” said Schmidt, speaking with The Jim Acosta Show host Jim Acosta. “We're going to have ads around the NRA convention, and we're going to put these ads up on Fox and Newsmax and OAN. And what the ads are going to show is ‘Drunk Jeanine’ talking about taking your guns. And we'll have the Trump quote. And then I'm going to use Charlton Heston in it. Raising the rifle, talking about taking his gun ‘from my cold dead hands.”
Schmidt, who was a prominent Republican strategist known for his work with the Bush and John McCain campaigns, remained furious that on Monday, Jeanine Pirro — who is U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia — threatened gun owners with jail time regardless of whether they were legally permitted to carry the weapon.
“You bring a gun into the district, you mark my words, you’re going to jail,” Pirro said during a Fox News interview on Monday. “I don’t care if you have a license in another district, and I don’t care if you’re a law-abiding gun owner somewhere else. You bring a gun into this district, count on going to jail and hope you get the gun back.”
Pirro retreated from that stance in a Tuesday video posted to X, after severe backlash from Second Amendment enthusiasts, but Schmidt said the Trump administration’s disdain for gun rights is cooked into the administration’s psyche, and that Trump had been misleading gun enthusiasts all along for their vote.
Earlier this month, Trump suggested that the death of U.S. citizen Alex Pretti — who was fatally shot in Minneapolis by federal agents — was somehow due to Pretti being armed.
“You can’t have guns. You can’t walk in with guns,” Trump said of Pretti’s legally concealed weapon as he observed federal agents.
Schmidt vowed to use his connections to out the administration’s betrayal of the Second Amendment.
“We're going to run that ad in the red states, and we're going to target gun owners. And we're going to call Donald Trump what he is, which is a gun grabber,” Schmidt told Acosta. “As a former Republican consultant, I have a PhD in how to use this issue effectively, and we're going to use it very effectively against Donald Trump in all of these districts.”
“If you're a Republican congressman out there in a district that Trump won by 10 or 12 points, know this: You are in danger. The tsunami's coming up over your roofline,” Schmidt added.
