- Kennedy announced Tuesday that Nicole Shanahan would be his VP pick
- Millionaire lawyer, 38, joined Kennedy in her hometown of Oakland, California
- READ MORE: She's the ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin and funded Kennedy's Super Bowl commercial
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy has officially unveiled millionaire Silicon Valley lawyer and tech entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan as his vice presidential pick.
The 38-year-old ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin took the stage alongside the longshot candidate and his Curb Your Enthusiasm actress wife Cheryl Hines in her hometown of Oakland, California, after telling the crowd: 'In this moment, I am leaving the Democratic Party'.
The avid surfer and investor had given $4.5 million to a super PAC backing Kennedy over the last year and helped pay for the Super Bowl ad that featured him.
The highly-anticipated announcement followed RFK Jr's headline-grabbing search for a VP which included candidates such as NFL star Aaron Rodgers, rapper Killer Mike, and ex-wrestler and former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura.
Presidential hopefuls Andrew Yang and ex-Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Dirty Jobs host Mike Rowe, life coach Tony Robbins, Republican Sen. Rand Paul, former Republican Sen. Scott Brown, Libertarian podcaster Dave Smith and Tricia Lindsay, a GOP candidate for state Senate in New York, were among those considered.
But Kennedy settled on Shanahan because of her age - 38 - and her work with the environment and artificial intelligence.
'I am confident that there's no American more qualified to play this role than Nicole Shanahan,' he told the crowd after speaking for more than 35 minutes as a warm-up.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy has officially unveiled millionaire Silicon Valley lawyer and tech entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan as his vice presidential pick
Nicole Shanahan (center left) with her partner Jacob Strumwasse (left) and Robert F. Kennedy (center right) and Cheryl Hines (right)
Shanahan, wearing a purple blazer, talked about her poor upbringing as the daughter of a Chinese immigrant mom and a German-Irish American father who suffered from mental health struggles.
'I know a lot of Americans know exactly what that's like - to be just one misfortune away from disaster,' she said. 'I don't think we would have made it without food stamps and government help.'
'As you probably know, I became very wealthy later on in life,' she said. 'But my roots in Oakland taught me many things I've never forgotten - that the purpose of wealth is to help those in need. That's what's it for.
'And I want to bring that back to politics too. That is the purpose of privilege,' she added.
Shanahan also talked about going to war-torn El Salvador as a high school student, which made her vehemently anti-war.
She said she embraced the Democratic Party because 'that was supposed to be the party of peace, the party of compassion.'
'It has lost its way,' the Bay Area lawyer said. '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 slapped at the Republican Party too.
'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,' Shanahan said.
'Maybe that's why I see so many Republicans disillusioned with their party as I become disillusioned with mine,' she said. 'If you are one of those disillusioned Republicans, I welcome you to join me, a disillusioned Democrat, in this movement to unify and heal America.'
The 38-year-old ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin took the stage alongside the longshot candidate and his actress wife Curb Your Enthusiasm actress Cheryl Hines in her hometown of Oakland, California, and told the crowd: 'In this moment, I am leaving the Democratic Party'
Kennedy and his wife Hines wait beside the stage at the VP pick announcement on Tuesday
Shanahan, wearing a purple blazer talked about her poor upbringing as the daughter of a Chinese immigrant mom and a German-Irish American father who suffered from mental health struggles
'I don't think we would have made it without food stamps and government help,' Shanahan told the crowd\said
Kennedy teased who he had picked before bringing Shanahan onstage - noting that his pick was a woman, an avid surfer, who possessed the 'gift of curiosity' and had 'a deep love of the United States of America
Shanahan talked about her Kennedy awakening, admitting to the crowd that she 'didn't think much of Bobby Kennedy' because she had only heard 'horrible disparaging things' of the media's making.
She said a friend asked her to listen to just one Kennedy interview.
Shanahan did - and then another and another.
'And then I recognized the person who I was seeing in these interviews was the exact opposite of the media's slander of his character,' she said.
Kennedy - the nephew of President John F. Kennedy and son of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy - is an environmental lawyer and prominent anti-vaxxer, who has tried to link autism to childhood vaccines.
Shanahan got loud cheers when she appeared to display a similar skepticism.
Her daughter, Echo, who she shares with Brin, is on the spectrum and she told the crowd what doctors and experts told her about autism's causes - first mentioning toxic substances in our environment and electromagnetic pollution.
'Third, I'm sorry to say, is our medications,' she said. 'Pharmaceutical medicine has its place but no single safety study can assess the cumulative impact of one prescription on top of another prescription and one shot on top of another shot on top of another shot throughout the course of childhood.'
'We just don't do that study right now and we ought to,' she said.
That got huge cheers from the Kennedy crowd.
'There is only one candidate I have met for president that takes the chronic disease epidemic seriously, it is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and I will be his ally in making our nation healthy again,' Shanahan said.
Shanahan talked about how she's produced films on healthy soil.
'So I am entering myself - I know I'm not a politician until just now - but I am entering myself to do this work and to highlight this need because, guess what, I've met some of the most innovative American farmers, their methods rebuild soil, sequester carbon, recharge aquifers, and revitalize the economy,' she said.
Shanahan concluded her remarks by explaining her decision to leave the Democratic Party, which she says was fueled by their 'overwhelming interest in elitism, celebrity and winning at all cost.'
'And I worry that they do it even if that means turning a blind eye on the issues that they all know to be true,' she said. 'I know because I've been in those circles for the last eight years and I've grown increasingly tired of it.'
She said meeting RFK Jr. and his supporters gave her 'hope' in this election.
'As I've reexamined my Democratic Party assumptions I've seen conservative voters with new eyes too. I have met farmers, I have met hunters, who are some of the most staunch conservationists I've ever met.'
Supporters of independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cheer ahead of his vice presidential announcement Tuesday morning in Oakland, California
'I have met mothers protecting their children who are searching every possible avenue for their health,' she said.
The new vice presidential pick vowed to spend the next seven months getting the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket on every ballot on the country.
RFK Jr. had to choose a running mate early, as more than 20 states require a full ticket to be announced before they can start the signature-gathering pricess to be placed on the ballot.
In some states, like Shanahan's California, that means getting a newly created 'We the People' party off the ground.
Kennedy had gathered supporters Tuesday at the 110-year-old Henry J. Kaiser Center in Oakland, Shanahan's hometown to announce her as his pick.
Along with former NBA player Meta World Please, he was introduced by his actress wife Hines.
She asked those in the audience to keep those impacted by the Baltimore bridge collapse in their minds.
Hines spoke about how her husband, 'Bobby,' was bringing together Americans from all political stripes.
'So when you look around you you're probably going to see Republicans, Democrats, independents all gathered together to see what we have in common and how we can work together and that's what Bobby's all about, and that's who he is and that's what he's doing,' the Curb Your Enthusiasm star said.
'And America is listening and is inspired,' she added.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (right) was introduced by his wife Cheryl Hines (left), an actress on Curb Your Enthusiasm
Nicole Shanahan, 38, addresses Kennedy supporters in her hometown of Oakland, California after officially joining the independent's presidential ticket
Kennedy and his wife embraced onstage and then the candidate took the podium for more than 35 minutes before inviting Shanahan to come out.
After a video highlighting some of Shanahan's backstory the new VP candidate was introduced.
Ahead of making it official, Kennedy teased who he had picked before bringing Shanahan onstage - noting that his pick was a woman, an avid surfer, who possessed the 'gift of curiosity' and had 'a deep love of the United States of America.'
He said he wanted someone one was an athlete - to compel Americans to get healthy - and a young person, and Shanahan is just 38.
Shanahan fit the bill - holding a law degree and launching a company in her 20s while still pursuing her JD.
She lists among her hobbies paddle boarding, snowboarding, swimming, running, yoga and surfing.
Shanahan met her second husband Brin at a Lake Tahoe yoga retreat and bonded with her current partner Jacob Strumwasse at Burning Man where they discussed their shared love of surfing.
'People talk about my age. It's true, I will be the youngest vice president in American history,' Shanahan said.
She noted that young people have turned away from politics.
'It's because we lost hope that change would ever come from inside the system,' Shanahan said. 'After all, which party wins with promises of hope and change or to drain the swamp, things proceed as usual declining bit by bit each passing year.'
'So that's the reason, but the other reason is that we can't stand the phoniness anymore, we can't stand the lies, we can't stand the inauthenticity and that's why Bobby Kennedy leads in all the polls among you people,' she said.
'We are hearing our voice in his,' she said of the 70-year-old Kennedy.
After the rally, Kennedy supporters were optimistic about the VP pick.
'I was skeptical when I heard about her age and her background but she really presented well and was really on par with his values, my values,' said 74-year-old Patricia Moore, a yoga teacher from Livermore, California.
Moore considered herself a Democrat but the COVID-19 pandemic pulled her away from the party.
'Because of the lockdowns, the lies, the mandates do no reflect my values of free speech and freedom,' she explained. 'Now I am probably more probably aligned with Republicans.'
Joseph Bandyke, 26, of San Francisco who works in retail said he was 'impressed' by the pick of Shanahan.
He said Shanahan's experience working with 'industry disruptors' was attractive to him, especially in the healthy food space.
'That was really encouraging to me,' he told DailyMail.com.
Bandyke also said that he liked that Kennedy had interviewed Dirty Jobs host Rowe as a potential VP - and that in 2020 he had voted for President Joe Biden.
He worried that Biden, 81, was too old to serve a serve a second term.
Bandyke wondered if Biden was 'gonna be alive and able to make decisions or competent enough to sit down and hash out an issue.'
Bandyke's friend, 27-year-old Austin Seyboldt, a San Francisco-based software developer, said he planned to vote for the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket despite not necessarily agreeing with Kennedy on all of the issues.
'I think everybody's really hung up on the vaccine stuff. I think it's like an easy thing to go after him for. I think that when you listen to him his heart is in the right place,' Seyboldt told DailyMail.com. 'You can't agree with somebody on everything, and so to me it's more important that somebody is ethical. And I think he genuinely seems like he wants to do the right thing.'
'And I can't say that for anybody else I've seen in politics,' he added.
