Breaking News: Kennedy Names Nicole Shanahan His Vice-Presidential Running Mate
American Values 2024 | March 26, 2024
By Leah Watson, The Kennedy Beacon
In a move certain to shake up the 2024 presidential race, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has selected Nicole Shanahan as his vice-presidential running mate. Kennedy made the announcement early Tuesday afternoon, March 26, in Oakland, California, at the Henry J. Kaiser Center for the Arts, his family and supporters cheering him on.
Charlene Nijmeh, chairwoman of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, opened up the event, a sign of Kennedy’s commitment to Native Americans, as
“I found all those qualities in a woman who grew up right here in Oakland,” he said, noting she is the daughter of immigrants.
Kennedy stressed that Shanahan is concerned about censorship and understands “how Big Tech uses AI to manipulate the public.” Kennedy also emphasized Shanahan’s commitment to health and fitness and spoke of her being an avid surfer and a “warrior mom” fighting for the health of children.
In announcing that Shanahan, a democrat, had also left the party of Kennedy’s father and uncle, he added, “Our values didn’t change but the democratic party did.”
Kennedy also spoke of how proud he was to have Shanahan help him on his “extraordinary crusade to win back our country,” saying she would also stand with him against the military-industrial complex, the Trump-Biden uni-party that has taken over American democracy, and Silicon Valley.
Noting her age, 38, he said he was counting on her to win over millennials and Gen Z Americans “who have lost faith in our country.”
He added that Shanahan and he will “unite America and that’s our path to victory.”
In accepting her partnership, Shanahan said that in Kennedy she saw a person of intelligence, compassion and reason after looking beyond the negative images that the media had painted of him. She promised to be Kennedy’s ally in making “our nation healthy again.”
Prior to the announcement, Kennedy addressed the media’s speculations in a video posted on X, describing his vice president as “an extraordinary person … but it’s not any of the people they’re talking about.” This seemed to put an end to rumors that Jesse Ventura or Aaron Rodgers might be the pick. However, the fact that the VP announcement was being held in Oakland, a city once home to Shanahan, seemed unlikely to be a coincidence. “It’s somebody that is going to surprise people, and [somebody] I think the country is really going to fall in love with,” Kennedy added.
Shanahan is a wealthy Silicon Valley lawyer once married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin. A 2021 article in San Francisco Magazine chronicles her life story. Shanahan grew up in Oakland and was raised by Chinese immigrant parents, who were unemployed for most of her childhood. Guided by an entrepreneurial spirit that overcame a life of poverty relying on food stamps, her early childhood was a backdrop to the skills she developed to get through law school and eventually create and run her own company.
“I learned how to compete in really creative ways by making broken objects perform at levels beyond their perceived capacity. This is a skill that helps me navigate almost every day of my life at work and at home, and especially being an entrepreneur,” Shanahan says in the story.
Shanahan is the founder of an AI-enabled patent management company, ClearAccessIP, as well as the Bia-Echo Foundation. The foundation specializes in three key areas of interest: reproductive longevity and equality, criminal justice reform, and environmental preservation. It is within this foundation that some of Shanahan’s and Kennedy’s values align, especially in terms of environmentalism. Both Shanahan and Kennedy are strong advocates for regenerative agriculture, promoting sustainable farming practices and healthier soil.
In addition to her environmental advocacy, Shanahan resonates with some of Kennedy’s other policies. She expresses concerns about vaccines and children’s health, and advocates more screening of vaccine risks. Although she does not identify herself as “anti-vax,” she admits that she wonders about vaccine injuries, especially after experiencing some “significant health issues” after receiving her mRNA vaccine, as reported by Newsweek. She further believes that the media labeling Kennedy as an “anti-vaxxer” is “alienating the progressive voter from his campaign,” especially since what Kennedy is promoting is vaccine safety and more scientific research.
In an interview with The New York Times, Shanahan stated that she contributed $4 million toward the American Values 2024 Super Bowl ad in support of Kennedy’s candidacy (American Values 2024 funds The Kennedy Beacon). In observation of this support, many speculate that it might be the reason Kennedy considered her to be his running mate. But in an interview on NewsNation, Kennedy reassured viewers that “I would never choose a vice-presidential candidate based on how much money they have,” and that even if Shanahan were broke, she would still be a contender. As an independent candidate, Kennedy is diligently working to gain ballot access in every state as well as the District of Columbia. In order to do so, he needs to collect signatures in each state, which is an expensive process.
According to Kennedy’s campaign website, he is on the ballot in Utah and has collected enough signatures to be on the ballots in New Hampshire and Nevada. Kennedy is required to announce a running mate in order to gain ballot access in a number of states. According to Ballot Access News, these include Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin, along with DC. All allow a placeholder vice-presidential candidate to be named, except for Hawaii and South Dakota.
The most striking similarity between Shanahan and Kennedy is their shared ambition to improve the world. “I want my legacy to be one of ideas,” Shanahan said in the San Francisco Magazine cover story. “I want it to be about evolving the human experience on this planet in an abundant way.”
