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From reality TV to warping reality: Rachel Campos-Duffy has made a career of pushing extremism, bigotry, and conspiracy theories

Written by Emma Mae Weber & Pete Tsipis

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Former reality TV star Rachel Campos-Duffy has spent eight years spreading extremism and conspiracy theories as a contributor and host at Fox News, where she has pushed the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, complained about “the eugenics mentality of the pro-choice movement,” and claimed that feminism is about “abortion and communism.”

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  • Campos-Duffy built a career at Fox News after appearing on reality TV and being a conservative activist

    • Campos-Duffy joined Fox as a contributor in 2016 and guest-hosted various shows until she was named an official co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend in 2021. Campos-Duffy has hosted other Fox projects such as a Fox Nation show called Moms, a roundtable show that explored parental topics, and she still co-hosts the podcast From the Kitchen Table with her husband, Fox News contributor and former Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI). [USA Today, 5/24/21]
    • Before her work on Fox News, Campos-Duffy was a reality TV star and conservative activist. In 1994, Campos-Duffy starred on MTV’s The Real World, where she met her husband. Campos-Duffy worked as the national spokesperson for LIBRE, a nonprofit that seeks to advance conservative policies in the Hispanic community. [BuzzFeed, 1/7/14; The Hill, 6/24/24; The Arizona Republic, 12/4/15]

  • Campos-Duffy has a long history of spreading conspiracy theories, including falsely claiming that Chinese bioweapons labs were found in California

    • Campos-Duffy pushed the “Great Reset” conspiracy theory, calling it a plot “to control populations,” and accused Pope Francis of being involved. The conspiracy theory, which gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic, claims that a plan for global climate action with the name “Great Reset” is a globalist front to take away people's freedoms. In reality, it’s a set of proposals envisioned by World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab in June 2020 that suggested ways to take advantage of a unique opportunity to mitigate climate change post-pandemic. Campos-Duffy accused Pope Francis of “reordering our economic system” and baselessly claimed that the Biden administration, “elites,” and the U.N. were using climate change mitigation efforts as a plot “to control populations.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 11/29/20, 12/3/23; Fox News, Fox & Friends, 12/14/23; Media Matters, 11/8/22]
    • Campos-Duffy has spread the “great replacement” conspiracy theory. The racist conspiracy theory claims that there is a plot engineered by elites for nonwhite immigrants to outnumber and replace white Americans. Campos-Duffy said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas should “just admit” the Biden administration’s immigration policy is to “get more votes.” Campos-Duffy also accused nongovernmental organizations of helping Democrats bring in “a new wave of immigrants, perhaps future voters.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 11/23/23; PBS, 5/16/22; Fox News, Fox & Friends, 2/27/24]
    • Campos-Duffy suggested that National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci conspired with Democrats to use the COVID-19 pandemic to normalize mail-in voting. “You will never convince me that that was not coordinated with Fauci and the Democrats,” Campos-Duffy said, “It's very clear that this whole made-up 6 feet of social distancing was about creating fear, including fear and the justification for not voting in person and creating mass mail-in ballots to become the norm.” This conspiracy theory is a key component of the debunked 2000 Mules film, which was recently pulled by its distributor, Salem Media Group, in May after the company was sued for defamation. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/5/24; The Associated Press, 5/3/22, 5/31/24]
    • On Fox & Friends, Campos-Duffy falsely claimed Chinese bioweapons labs were found in California. Campos-Duffy fearmongered that “you have the Chinese exerting influence all over our hemisphere,” including by “buying up farmland, setting up secret police, bioweapons labs found in California,” seemingly referring to debunked conspiracy theories about the owner of “an unauthorized central California lab” who was “arrested on charges of not obtaining the proper permits to manufacture tests for COVID-19, pregnancy and HIV, and mislabeling some of the kits.” In reality, The Associated Press reported that criminal charges against the lab’s owner “deal with federal health regulations, nothing related to online conspiracy theories about China purportedly trying to engineer biological weapons in rural America.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/5/24; The Associated Press, 10/20/23]
    • More recently, Campos-Duffy claimed the Harris-Walz campaign is “a globalist ticket with these mystery puppet masters running it.” “We don't really know who is making the decisions on the other side,” she said, referring to Democrats. Campos-Duffy also said former President Donald Trump “isn't really running against Kamala Harris, he is running against a corrupt system. And I think he's promising, along with RFK Jr. and JD Vance, to sort of blow up that system, expose the corruption.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/26/24]
    • Campos-Duffy speculated that pro-Palestinian protests were an intentional distraction “to what is coming across the border.” Campos-Duffy theorized that Democrats are attempting to cover up “the numbers of people they want to come through to change our elections and our electorate.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 5/3/24]

  • Campos-Duffy has expressed extreme opposition to reproductive freedom, argued that “having an abortion is not going to undo the pain of a rape,” and celebrated the end of Roe v. Wade as “a wonderful victory”

    • Campos-Duffy minimized what she called “the rape excuse” when discussing reasons why people decide to have abortions, saying, “Having an abortion is not going to undo the pain of a rape.” She also claimed abortion “doesn't solve any of the problems. It just creates a whole new set of problems.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 10/9/22]
    • After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Campos-Duffy drew a parallel between abortion and slavery. Campos-Duffy said, “It has divided America for the same grave moral reasons that slavery did. Who gets to decide who is human enough to enjoy life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 6/26/22] 
    • Campos-Duffy called the overturning of Roe v. Wade “a wonderful victory.” While interviewing Lynne Fitch, the attorney general behind the case that reversed the right to abortion access, Campos-Duffy said, “There is a lot of pro-life work yet to do. I think that's the challenge, is to say Roe v. Wade, it was a wonderful victory, let's celebrate, but let's also get back to work.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/20/23] 
    • While praising the rapper Ye (formerly known as Kanye West), Campos-Duffy said that “the real killer of the Black community is abortion.” She continued, “Those are things you’re not allowed to say on TV, and he says it. And he even wears a sweatshirt with an ultrasound, which again, we’re supposed to believe isn't a baby. So this guy is changing culture. And politics is changed by culture first.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 10/7/22]
    • Campos-Duffy criticized “the eugenics mentality of the pro-choice movement” and called abortion clinics “butcher shops.” She attacked abortion clinics, saying, “I refuse to call them health centers. They are not. They are profit centers. You can call them butcher shops if you like.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 6/26/22]
    • Campos-Duffy pushed the conspiracy theory that Planned Parenthood was “selling human body parts.” Campos-Duffy attacked Vice President Kamala Harris for her work while she was the California district attorney, saying, “She was the prosecutor … when there were whistle-blowers that had come out and found that there were the sale of human baby body parts, and she was the one who squashed the whistle-blower.” Campos-Duffy added, “She’s someone who is not really interested in getting to the bottom of crimes. Indeed, selling human body parts is a crime, and Planned Parenthood was involved in it.” In fact, multiple investigations into this baseless claim against Planned Parenthood came up empty, with investigators finding no evidence that Planned Parenthood was selling fetal tissue. [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 10/9/22; NPR, 1/28/16]
    • While discouraging the use of birth control, Campos-Duffy theorized that the population decline is due to younger generations consuming “globalist population and climate alarmists” propaganda. Campos-Duffy stated, “You talked about this yesterday, Will -- this anti-human agenda, and it is in direct contrast with the Judeo-Christian idea of be fruitful and multiply. Instead, they see fertility as a curse. You know, always wanting to give women pills to take care of that. And children as burdens. And it's a lie.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 1/22/23]
    • Campos-Duffy claimed, “The feminist movement is not about women. It's always been about abortion and communism.” Ranting about a supposed lack of support from feminists for Israel’s war in Gaza, Campos-Duffy said: “ If you're looking for feminism to stand on the side of the voiceless, and the powerless against violence, well don't look to the pro-abortion feminists. That's not going to happen. That's not their agenda, it never has been.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 11/30/23]

  • Campos-Duffy tried to undermine viewers' confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine, accused Sesame Street of spreading “propaganda” for Big Pharma, and claimed vaccine mandates are the “beginning of the communist-style social credit system”

    • Campos-Duffy accused Sesame Street of spreading “propaganda” in some “really creepy ways” when the show educated kids on the COVID-19 vaccine. Complaining about “the authoritarianism we see creeping into our society and our culture, what's most disturbing is what we're seeing done to our kids,” Campos-Duffy showed a clip of “Big Bird talking about getting the vaccine” and said, “Sanjay Gupta should be talking to mommy and papi and not to little kids on this — what looks like a Big Pharma commercial on Sesame Street.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 11/7/21] 
    • Campos-Duffy said “Joe Biden declared war on freedom” by issuing vaccine requirements for federal employees. Claiming “Biden threw the Constitution out the window,” the Fox host added that the policy announcement “took authoritarianism to a whole new level by forcing vaccines on millions of Americans.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 9/10/21]
    • Campos-Duffy hypothesized that the Biden administration wanted “to criminalize the unvaccinated.” She later said she was in favor of “civil disobedience” to Biden’s vaccine mandates. [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 9/10/21]
    • Campos-Duffy fearmongered that COVID-19 vaccine mandates were the “beginning of the communist-style social credit system.” Campos-Duffy suggested that other freedoms are next, claiming, “This happens in China. … This is the beginning of that system where if you're a dissident, if you don't agree with the party in power, you will be punished.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 9/13/21]
    • Campos-Duffy said getting the COVID-19 vaccine would make people more likely to get the omicron variant. The National Institutes of Health said independent studies showed the vaccine generated cellular immunity against omicron. Campos-Duffy questioned, “Why are we forcing people to get vaccinated when you’re more likely to get the virus if you’re vaccinated in the variant that we have right now?” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 1/8/22; National Institutes of Health, 2/15/22]
    • Campos-Duffy compared the Biden administration’s immigration policy to the push for COVID-19 vaccinations, claiming they are harmful to children. While interviewing Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Campos-Duffy stated, “We should have seen that in COVID, by the way. They didn't care what happened to our kids there, either. They just wanted their vaccinations, their policies, and they wanted to shut down schools to make the point. They didn't care about the children there and many of the vaccine injuries that happened to children as a result of it.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 4/30/23]
    • Explaining her distrust of vaccines, Campos-Duffy declared, “I don’t trust anything with pharma anymore.” Responding to a guest who claimed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is “skeptical of all vaccines,” Campos-Duffy admitted, “I'm starting to get there too.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 7/3/23]

  • Campos-Duffy fearmongered about public schools, claiming they can’t be “trusted to teach your children,” and complained that U.S. educators are all “licensed through these Marxist teaching schools”

    • Campos-Duffy has said public school teachers can’t be “trusted to teach your children.” She said: “If I was in the Chicago school district right now, I would be fighting really, really hard to get that money, to get a voucher, to have that money attached to my kid and not a system, because these people aren't even to be trusted to teach your children." [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 1/9/22]
    • Campos-Duffy has denigrated public schools while advocating for school choice, saying, “You won't be held hostage by your local public school.” She has also spoken in support of “a universal school choice program where the money is attached to the kid and not the system.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 1/2/22, 1/9/22]
    • Campos-Duffy blamed low reading scores on children “getting sexualized and racialized” in public schools. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/30/23]
    • Campos-Duffy praised Moms for Liberty, an organization that considers itself part of the “parental rights movement,” for partnering with Gays Against Groomers, an anti-trans group, on a seminar attacking sex education. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/30/24; Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 8/28/24]
    • Campos-Duffy claimed that teachers in the U.S. are all “licensed through these Marxist teaching schools.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/31/23]

  • Campos-Duffy spewed anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, attacking the pope, “trans activists,” and the American Library Association

    • Campos-Duffy accused the American Library Association of “trying so hard to sexualize our children.” Campos-Duffy suggested labeling books with LGBTQ themes as diverse was just a sneaky way to allow porn in libraries. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 11/2/23]
    • Campos-Duffy asked, “Could a lesbian Virgin Mary be coming to a church near you, now that the Pope has approved blessings for same-sex couples?” Campos-Duffy blamed Pope Francis for a nativity scene depicting two mothers, saying he “failed to protect our sacred doctrine and traditions.” [Mediaite, 12/26/23]
    • Campos-Duffy said “trans activists” are “intimidating parents” of trans children. While criticizing Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine for vetoing a bill that would ban trans youth from receiving gender-affirming care and playing sports, Campos-Duffy also said there are parents of trans children who are “weirdos who are convincing their kids to do these kinds of things for their own psychological reasons.” [Media Matters, 1/10/24]

  • Campos-Duffy criticized environmental concerns, including suggesting “green energy fetishes” are to blame for inflation

    • Campos-Duffy said a hurricane would be an excuse for Democrats to push an “anti-human agenda.” When discussing the destruction from Hurricane Idalia, Campos-Duffy warned that Democrats “are not going to let this go to waste. This is going to be another, you know, reason for them to push this very anti-human agenda.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/31/23]
    • Campos-Duffy suggested that “green energy fetishes” are to blame for inflation. [Business Insider, 5/30/22]
    • Campos-Duffy criticized wind farms, saying they are ugly and “there's so many effects of it that we don't even know about.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 11/4/23]

  • Campos-Duffy defended conditions in detention centers for migrant kids, attacked a nonprofit giving humanitarian aid to asylum-seekers, and claimed “illegal alien criminals are raping and murdering our women and children”

    • Campos-Duffy harassed the employees and guests of a Catholic charity helping asylum-seekers, claiming it ran a “secret hotel housing illegal immigrants.” Arriving unannounced and with cameras, Campos-Duffy confronted the staff of Casa Alitas, a program run by the Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona that provides shelter, food, medical assistance, and other necessities for asylum-seekers. Campos-Duffy later posted on X, “Last night I found & walked into a #CasaAlitas … . Instant panic ensued.” In the video, she was asked to leave multiple times and can be seen snooping behind workers' desks. [Twitter/X, 2/26/24; KVOA, 7/2/24]
    • Campos-Duffy defended the conditions of detention centers for migrant children who were separated from their families, claiming that African Americans told her they are “better than” public housing. When asked by The New York Times about her comment, Campos-Duffy wrote, “The centers are not ideal, but they are safe, supervised, and provide three square meals, instruction and other resources. Those are indeed better conditions than many poor American children have.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 6/21/18; The New York Times, 6/23/18]
    • Campos-Duffy said that immigrants in New York should be happy with the Randall's Island migrant facility, saying it's “paradise” compared to “eating their pets.” Campos-Duffy stated, “It's amazing compared to — if you are living in a village in Guatemala or Honduras, or if you're coming from Venezuela where people are eating their pets and zoo animals, this is paradise, but what has happened again, these NGOs have empowered and emboldened them to want more and more and they are coming here meaning handouts. That's not the way that immigration used to work, that's not how immigrant mentalities were a generation ago.” Immigrants who have been staying at the facility have spoken out against its conditions, saying there is not enough security to keep everyone safe, while rules barring cooking inside the facility left some to prepare raw meat inside public restrooms. [Fox News, Outnumbered, 1/30/23; The Associated Press, 1/25/24]
    • Campos-Duffy repeatedly linked undocumented immigrants to violent crime. Campos-Duffy claimed that “hundreds of thousands of illegals are breaking into the country and illegal alien criminals are raping and murdering our women and children.” In another instance discussing Latino voters, she said migrants “are bringing with them crime. A lot of it is the crime that their parents were telling them was happening in El Salvador and many other countries in Latin America.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/14/24; Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/24/24]