In a clear play to young voters and Americans disillusioned with the state of the country’s politics, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday he named Nicole Shanahan, a 38-year-old Silicon Valley lawyer, investor and political stalwart, as his running mate in his independent presidential bid.
Ms. Shanahan’s selection brings the youth and idealism of an outsider to the ticket for Mr. Kennedy, the political scion whose long-running campaign for the White House threatens to complicate the electoral calculus for both President Biden and former President Donald Trump. J. Trump.
But she also brings a source of financial support: Ms. Shanahan, who was previously married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, has already contributed more than $4.5 million to help Mr. Kennedy’s bid. Mr. Kennedy faces a costly effort to get on the ballot in all 50 states, as he says he will try to do. And he had a tighter timeline to name a vice presidential pick because some states require a full ballot to be included in the petition to place independent candidates on the ballot.
“I found exactly the right person,” Mr. Kennedy told a rally in Oakland, California, as he revealed his choice. Praising Ms Shanahan as a “charismatic administrator” and a “tough warrior mom” with expertise in artificial intelligence and intellectual property, he described her as “a daughter of immigrants who overcame every formidable obstacle and reached the highest levels of the American dream”.
Taking the stage more than half an hour after Mr. Kennedy announced her as his running mate, Ms. Shanahan echoed many of his campaign themes, including vaccine skepticism, concerns about chronic disease and corruption in America. , and calls for a cleaner environment and the elimination of pesticides and genetically modified foods.
“The very failure of both parties to do their job, to protect their founding values, has contributed to the decline of this country in my lifetime,” said Ms. Shanahan, who described herself as a lifelong Democrat. . “Maybe that’s why I see as many Republicans as disillusioned with their party as I am disillusioned with mine. If you are one of those disenchanted Republicans, I welcome you to join me, a disenchanted Democrat, in this movement to unify and heal America.”
Just last month, Ms. Shanahan’s only public connection to Mr. Kennedy was her donation of $4 million to pay for a Super Bowl ad supporting him.
Although trained as a lawyer, her work in recent years has focused on funding health and environmental research, issues that Mr. Kennedy — an environmental lawyer and vaccine skeptic who has promoted conspiracy theories — has made a cornerstone of his campaign. .
Ms Shanahan took the stage on Tuesday more than two hours into the rally, following a long parade of speakers who variously denounced school closures during the pandemic, carcinogenic pesticides in the US food supply, the “corporate capture” of America government and called the censorship of dissenting voices in the mainstream media.
One speaker, Calley Means, founder of a nutritional and health supplement company, said: “A dispassionate statement of economic fact is that there has not been a more profitable invention in American history than a sick child, a chronically ill child.” Another speaker was Metta Sandiford-Artest, the former NBA player known as Ron Artest and Metta World Peace.
Mr. Kennedy spoke alone on stage at length after naming Ms. Shanahan, saying he was going to stand up to Wall Street, “crony capitalists” and Silicon Valley. He later said he would “help me free our country” from the “corrupt amalgamation of state and corporate power that now stalks our nation’s capital like a mythical harpy.”
Ms Shanahan appeared in public for the first time on Tuesday in a pre-recorded video, in which she described how her young daughter’s diagnosis with autism led her to research chronic diseases and environmental toxins. Although she did not mention vaccines, that experience and her interest in the issue seemed to speak to a sizeable part of Mr. Kennedy’s base: parents who are skeptical of childhood vaccinations and who criticize a medical establishment that they say promotes medical interventions in children.
When she took the stage, Ms. Shanahan appeared teary-eyed at first, but as she spoke, her voice became steadier as she described her difficult childhood in Oakland. Her mother – who was in the audience – immigrated from China and worked as a housekeeper and secretary. Her father was often out of work, she said, and struggled with substance abuse.
In her remarks, Ms Shanahan described a “crisis in reproductive health, embedded in a larger epidemic of chronic disease”, which she attributed to toxic substances in the environment, “electromagnetic pollution” – a reference that elicited a loud and relieved “yes”. !” from a woman in the back of the cave event space — and medicine. Chronic disease, she said, would be a major focus of her candidacy and the Kennedy White House.
Ms. Shanahan emerged as Mr. Kennedy’s favorite vice-presidential choice in recent weeks, after NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers and former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura topped his list.
He has a history of contributing to Democrats, including to Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign. He has endorsed Mr. Kennedy since last spring, when he was still seeking the Democratic nomination. In October, he became an independent candidate, saying the Democratic Party had corruptly blocked his efforts to challenge Mr. Biden in the primary race.
In an interview last month, Ms. Shanahan said she had initially endorsed Mr. Kennedy because she was “enthusiastic” about him and worried about Mr. Biden’s health. He said he had spoken to Mr. Kennedy only once, on the phone, when he was still a Democratic candidate.
When Mr Kennedy left the party, she was “incredibly disappointed”, she said, troubled by how “divisive” she thought the movement was. “I kind of retired and stopped all my political giving.”
It wasn’t until January that he became involved with Mr. Kennedy’s campaign again, and he found, he said, “almost like a secret society” of people who supported him. “It was very, very interesting for me to hear how people were moved by his message and his willingness to be out there,” she said.
He made the big donation helping to fund the Super Bowl ad in support of Mr. Kennedy, which was bought by an allied super PAC, and told The New York Times that he had provided creative guidance. The ad, which reused a 1960 ad for Mr. Kennedy’s uncle, John F. Kennedy, drew criticism from members of the Kennedy family, who have emphatically distanced themselves from the campaign.
Mr. Biden’s Democratic allies worry that Mr. Kennedy could hand the election to Mr. Trump, although polls have left a mixed picture of which major-party candidate Mr. Kennedy would get more votes. A recent Fox News national poll put his support at about 13 percent, pulling roughly equal shares of voters away from his mainstream rivals.
But the Democratic Party has launched a legal assault on Mr. Kennedy aimed at keeping him off the ballot, especially in critical battleground states.
On a call organized by the Democratic National Committee on Tuesday in response to Mr. Kennedy’s announcement, Representative Robert Garcia of California said: “This is what Robert Kennedy is picking, essentially a mega-donor to fund his campaign with no experience, which leans towards his anti-Vax conspiracy theories and has no real core as it relates to truth or science.”
Mr. Trump’s allies also appeared wary of Mr. Kennedy on Tuesday.
A super PAC supporting the former president released a statement describing Mr. Kennedy as a “far-left liberal with a far-left liberal candidate.”
Mr. Trump’s campaign spokesman, Steven Chung, later said: “RFK Jr. he’s a radical leftist — an environmental temp who loves EV mandates, wants to end gasoline engines. He is not independent.”
Michael Gold contributed reporting
