RFK Jr has announced Nicole Shanahan as his running mate. Before blowing up social media about your opinion on this pick, spend 9 minutes and listen to Shanahan herself explain her story and why she’s chosen to be RFK’s vice president. You will see 1000’s of posts attacking… pic.twitter.com/CTTmLCcsyy — End Tribalism in Politics (@EndTribalism) …
Late Night Unholy Schadenfreude Open Thread: RFK Jr Has Chosen His VP CandidatePost + Comments (128)
After weeks of speculation, anti-vaccine activist and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced today that he had chosen Nicole Shanahan as his vice presidential running mate. Shanahan, 38, an attorney and tech entrepreneur, has donated millions to a super PAC supporting Kennedy’s campaign.
“I’m so proud to introduce to you the next vice president of the United States,” Kennedy said, praising her as a “fellow lawyer” as well as a “fierce warrior mom.”
During the announcement, which took place at the Kaiser Center in Shanahan’s hometown of Oakland, California, Kennedy called her “a technologist at the forefront of AI” and that “she understands that the health of every American is a national security issue and a national security risk.”
“I wanted someone who is battle-tested,” Kennedy added, and able to withstand the “defamations” he said are part of running for office.
Shanahan has been in the news plenty and is known for her previous marriage to Google cofounder Sergey Brin, which ended in a divorce finalized in 2023. The Wall Street Journal reported that the breakup followed an alleged affair between Shanahan and Elon Musk, a former friend of Brin’s. Musk denied the affair on Twitter. Shanahan is also a prominent figure in Silicon Valley; she’s the founder of the Bia-Echo Foundation, which invests in projects targeting “reproductive longevity and equality, criminal justice reform, and a healthy and livable planet.” She was also a CodeX fellow at the Stanford Center of Legal Informatics, a collaboration between their legal and computer science department. And she’s the founder of ClearAccess IP, an analytics company…
Shanahan has never held political office but has previously donated money to the campaigns of Pete Buttigieg and Marianne Williamson. She also supported President Biden’s 2020 campaign. Earlier this year, she switched it up and donated $4 million to American Values 2024, the PAC that aired a Super Bowl ad supporting Kennedy’s campaign. Donor records also show that she has given to many Democratic candidates in past election cycles, as well as to the Democratic National Committee. During her speech, Shanahan announced that she was leaving the Democratic party.
Kennedy also stressed Shanahan’s youth and lack of political insider status, saying he was “most importantly looking for a partner who was a young person, and Nicole is only 38 years old.” He noted that Biden and Trump are the “two oldest presidential candidates in US history.” (Kennedy, 70, is just seven years younger than Trump.)
In a video introducing herself, Shanahan said that her daughter began showing signs of autism spectrum disorder in her infancy, and claimed that “environmental exposure,” including wireless technology and “medication” could be the cause of chronic illnesses. These are unfounded statements that are frequently repeated by the anti-vaccine movement and Kennedy himself. (Shanahan did not overtly say whether she’s anti-vaccine, but the fact that she’s serving as RFK’s running mate could be an indicator.)
Shanahan also pledged to assemble the best minds in technology to comb nonspecific federal databases in order to solve chronic disease. “We will find the answers to our most pressing health concerns within weeks,” she said, “not decades.”…
Under less fraught circumstances, Shanahan would be a sympathetic figure. She survived a genuinely harrowing childhood through hard work and determined optimism, ending up adjacent to some of the top Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. She got to be Sergey Brin’s second wife, and drew a lot of cold looks thereby, from the announcement of their relationship to its messy dissolution. She was desperate for a biological child, underwent extensive fertility treatments before giving birth to her daughter, and was understandably desolated when the child was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Elon Musk, the narrative goes, was sympathetic and offered her Neurolink research… leading to the predictable rumors. And, frankly, her VP kickoff hasn’t drawn good reviews…
Her problem is she’s not Sinema or Gabbard, she’s a Democrat, she’s mafia, she’s a globalist, etc.
RFKJr people are all different kinds of ideological & personality-type slop w little in common other than they were all dumped in to the same bucket https://t.co/4CEPYtw9R0
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 26, 2024
Only thing Nicole Shanahan brings to the RFKJr campaign is money to pay for signature gathering to get on state budgets, & a line of communications btwn RFKJr & Musk et al; ergo, she’s part of the communications/coordination between RFKJr & Trump. https://t.co/7gtmDZGoiy
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 26, 2024