Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Tuesday that he had selected wealthy Bay Area attorney and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan as his vice-presidential running mate.
Shanahan, the 38-year-old daughter of a Chinese immigrant mother and troubled white father in Oakland, California, and was previously married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, is a major Kennedy backer. She gave $4 million to a pro-Kennedy super PAC, American Values 2024, to air the retro-style Super Bowl ad that conjured the 1960 campaign of Kennedy’s uncle, former President John F. Kennedy.
“There is only one anti-war candidate today, and you won’t find him in the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. He is an independent, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.!” she declared at the close of two-and-a-half-hour campaign rally in Oakland announcing her selection.
“Yes, and it is his commitment to peace and to the welfare of hardworking people in America that draws me as a person of compassion to his candidacy.”
Shanahan’s newness to public life was evident in her bearing at the podium. She sometimes bracketed her sentences with nervous giggles.
But she offered a moving personal story that stood in marked contrast to Kennedy’s aristocratic origins. Shanahan’s father’s substance abuse and mental health issues created economic hardship for the family, forcing them to rely on government assistance, she said. That experience “has become part of my determination to do something for our country,” she said.
The birth of Shanahan’s daughter, who was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, is part of what has driven her closer to Kennedy, who believes that chemicals in vaccines and pollutants are fueling a chronic disease epidemic.
Shanahan laid out her belief that a combination of endocrine-disrupting chemicals, electromagnetic “pollution” from devices like cell phones and the over-prescription of medication and other treatments have fueled maladies ranging from…
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