Did Reagan say fascism would come to America ‘in the name of liberalism’?

For years, a rumor has spread that former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, said, “If fascism comes to America, it’ll come in the name of liberalism.” For example, an Instagram post shared a video clip supposedly showing Reagan saying the words:

(Instagram user @naz_hashem)

Some websites and social media posts claimed the video was excerpted from an interview with Reagan on CBS News’ “60 Minutes.” In the video, Reagan supposedly credited someone else for the quote: “You know, someone very profoundly once said, many years ago, that if fascism ever comes to America, it’ll come in the name of liberalism.”

The video appeared to be authentic — that is, it did not display any visual signs of digital manipulation or artificial-intelligence (AI) software. However, we were unable to track down the raw footage to confirm its legitimacy, and we found no other evidence of Reagan saying the in-question statement. CBS’ online database of “60 minutes” episodes did not include the alleged clip.

For those reasons, we did not rate this claim. If we find primary evidence to confirm (or debunk) it, we will update this page.

We attempted to contact researchers at the Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, though, due to the 2025 federal government shutdown, the institution was closed. It responded to our inquiry with an automated email: “We will respond to your email once funding is restored.” We also reached out to CBS’ archives department to confirm the legitimacy of the purported interview with Reagan.

Snopes found on YouTube longer clips of the same footage, all of which credited a 1975 episode of “60 Minutes,” just like the AEI. The clips showed a banner reading “60 Overtime” — a digital companion series to “60 Minutes” — at the bottom of the video. 

According to the Reagan library’s online archive of his public appearances, Reagan did interview with “60 Minutes” in 1975. That entry on the library’s website said the interview existed in “VHS video format” and did not include any visual evidence of it. 

According to CBS, Reagan talked on “60 Minutes” in 1975, 1976, 1980 and 1989. 

If the exact quote was originally uttered by someone other than Reagan (as claimed in the video), we could not find a record of it. 

A Google search revealed one variant of the phrase: “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” People have often attributed that statement to Sinclair Lewis, though without evidence. 

A search on Newspapers.com, a historical archive of newspapers, also showed sources using variations of the phrase, all with different endings. 

In 1938, The Daily Worker published a column that included the sentence, “If fascism ever comes to America, it’ll be under the guise of such phony anti-communism.” A 1971 article in the Houston Post read, “If fascism ever comes to America, it will come from men aggrandizing the forces of government, not from men criticizing their misuse.” A 1978 clip of the San Francisco Chronicle read, “If fascism ever comes to America, it’ll be in the name of Americanism,” attributing the statement to Huey Long, a former U.S. senator and governor of Louisiana. 

A search for variations of the phrase “If fascism ever comes to America, it’ll be in the name of liberalism” (or “it will come as liberalism” or “it will come under the guise of liberalism”) on Newspaper.com showed several clips, all of which attributed the quote to Reagan.