A “Democrat voter” that Fox News brought on to discuss former President Donald Trump’s Iowa town hall is actually a “politically homeless” anti-vaccine activist who has said Democratic candidates “are an automatic no-no for me” and that she was “voting down ballot Republican” during last year’s midterm elections.
After Fox & Friends featured a panel of six voters on Wednesday morning to weigh in on Trump’s Tuesday night event with Fox star Sean Hannity, liberal watchdog Media Matters revealed that Stephanie Edmonds, the panel’s supposed lone Democrat, was in fact a political activist who has publicly railed against Democrats for years.
Introducing Edmonds as “undecided” or potentially “leaning a little bit toward Trump,” Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt then said “I know you’re a Democrat” before asking her “how are you feeling” after watching the town hall.
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With an on-air graphic describing her as a “Democrat voter,” Edmonds then went on to accuse Trump of socialism for helping to develop coronavirus vaccines during the pandemic.
“He teed up a socialist vaccination program that then led to mandates, which caused people like me and thousands of other teachers to lose their jobs,” she exclaimed. “So I think that at the very least, we need to have this conversation, which is part of the reason that I’m making a documentary about those shutdowns and really highlighting his role in that.”
While she added that “Democrats like me are fleeing from the Democratic Party,” Edmonds has previously been very vocal about how she is basically a Libertarian who is only registered as a Democrat because she lives in a very blue district. Furthermore, this should have been known to Earhardt because Edmonds directly told her this a couple of months ago.
During a similar voter panel on Fox & Friends on Sept. 28, Earhardt noted that Edmonds lives “in Stamford, Connecticut, very Democratic area, so you’re registered as a Democrat, but you say you’re politically homeless.” Edmonds agreed at the time, saying “I’m actually politically homeless” and is a “Democrat because I live in a Democrat town, so it allows me to participate more effectively in the process.”
However, it goes beyond that. Edmonds, who lost her teaching job in New York City for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine, has made several media appearances to discuss her anti-vaccine activism. Additionally, she has been very vocal on social media about her overt criticism of the Democratic Party.
Tweeting that she only first registered as a Democrat in 2020 in order to support former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s unsuccessful presidential primary bid, Edmonds then praised Gabbard for “joining the Unaffiliated with me” when the ex-congresswoman left the Democratic Party.
She’s also said she’s “NEVER voted” for a GOP or Democratic presidential candidate, that “Democrats are an automatic no-no for me,” and that she would be “voting down ballot Republican” during the 2022 midterm elections.
Fox News, meanwhile, has long shown that they are willing to play fast and loose with how they describe their on-air guests, whether it’s passing off GOP activists as merely “concerned parents” or Republican political candidates as just local business owners.
