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Two Fox News guests who were portrayed by the network as run-of-the-mill “Trump voters” on Tuesday are both heavily involved in Republican politics, with one working as an assistant to an elected GOP official and the other a multiple-time candidate for local office.
During a Tuesday broadcast of America’s Newsroom, anchor Bill Hemmer moderated a discussion featuring two supporters of President Donald Trump, both of whom enthusiastically backed the efforts by the administration and Elon Musk’s meme-based department to dismantle government agencies and slash federal funding.
“President Trump doubling down on his support for the DOGE leader Elon Musk. Which is getting a lot of headlines – basically all of them in the last couple of weeks. It is still early, but they’re moving fast,” Hemmer noted at the top of the segment. “The president is pointing out it’s exactly what he campaigned on. But how do voters feel? I want to bring in Don O’Connor out of Iowa, a Trump voter from Mason City – he’s in banking. And screen right is Nick Schultz; he is outside of Milwaukee in Waukesha.”
Turning to O’Connor, who he called the “senior member of our panel,” the Fox host asked if he liked what he was seeing in Trump’s first weeks and if he thought it would be successful.
While O’Connor said he didn’t know “who you cannot like what DOGE is doing,” an on-air graphic appeared alongside him listing off some biographical details, such as his age, hometown, occupation, and years he voted for Trump. “They are doing exactly what he campaigned on,” O’Connor added. “We’re out there transparency and what they’ve uncovered so far should make every single person, regardless of party, upset.”
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Hemmer then turned to Schultz, noting that he had told the anchor that he was worried about the cutting of USAID funds before digging into it more, as DOGE effectively shut down the agency. While Schultz spoke, Fox News also displayed an on-air graphic detailing his age, hometown, votes for Trump, and occupation, which was listed as “research assistant.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Schultz responded. “I get USAID is used to stunt Chinese influence and things like that but some of this other stuff seems like it has been a tool for the other side to be used to funnel money back into their cause. That worries me. I did not know that about USAID.”
Throughout the rest of the discussion, which lasted nearly six minutes, chyrons were aired describing Schultz as a “Wisconsin Trump Voter” and O’Connor as an “Iowa Trump Voter.” O’Connor would also tell Hemmer that he has “nothing to hide” and, therefore, doesn’t care if Musk has access to his Social Security number. “Let them look,” he added.
Hemmer stated that the majority of voters wanted “complete and total upheaval” during the last election. He then asked his two guests if there was anything Trump could do now that would disappoint them. “Back down and not finish the job,” O’Connor said, while Schultz agreed, saying Trump would only be disappointed “if he doesn’t follow through” on his promises.
While the Fox News segment portrayed the two interview subjects as average voters, a closer examination of their backgrounds reveals that both are directly involved in Republican politics.
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O’Connor, for instance, has twice run for elected office. In 2018, he announced his candidacy for Cerro Gordo County auditor as a Republican, saying at the time: “If I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it.” He would later run for Cerro Gordo County Supervisor in 2022, also as a Republican and representing the 3rd District. O’Connor ended up losing a razor-thin race to Democrat Lori Meacham Ginapp, which he conceded after a recount showed he lost by a mere five votes.
When reached for comment, O’Connor told The Independent that his past political campaigns did not come up during his conversations with the network ahead of this interview. At the same time, he noted that he’d appeared on Fox News in the past and had first been contacted by the network some years back.
“I did a live segment with them at Iowa caucus time last year in Des Moines and was contacted by a scheduler of their show a couple of years ago,” O’Connor wrote from his campaign’s email address. “My past political campaigns did not come up this time in our conversations however.”
Schultz, meanwhile, has spent the past three years as a legislative aide and policy research assistant in the office of Wisconsin State Rep. Ron Tusler, a Republican representing the state assembly’s 3rd district. According to the Wisconsin State Legislature’s official website, Schultz is one of two full-time staff members in Tusler’s office.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Schultz interned for Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and the Racine County District Attorney’s office before he began working in the state assembly under Tusler. He also listed an internship on the 2020 campaign of Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI).
Schultz did not immediately return a request for comment that was sent to his state assembly email address.
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This isn’t the first time that Republican activists and officials have appeared on Fox News, only for them to be depicted as everyday American voters or “concerned” parents and business owners.
With the GOP ramping up a culture war battle in 2021 over “critical race theory” that helped Republicans win statewide in Virginia that year, the network presented nearly a dozen guests as “concerned” parents and educators opposed to the teaching of CRT who also happened to be GOP strategists, right-wing media personalities and conservative think-tank employees.
Ahead of the midterm elections the following year, Fox News hosted a “panel of Virginia parents” to criticize liberal and progressive policies. The panel, meanwhile, was primarily packed with conservative activists and included a former Trump administration official. The network has also presented an anti-vax activist who said Democratic candidates are “an automatic no-no” for her.
Fox News isn’t the only cable news network that has leaned on political activists to fill out panels of supposed average voters. CNN, in 2018, hosted a panel of Republican women but failed to disclose that all of the panelists were members of a group called the “Trumpettes of America 2019 Palm Beach Team.” This came after the network repeatedly featured a pair of former New Hampshire GOP lawmakers in segments about everyday Trump voters during the 2016 election.
Fox News did not respond to a request for comment.
