She’s a Californian, who recollects being raised on meals stamps in a house the place each dad and mom struggled to search out work. She bussed tables at age 12, earlier than schooling powered her to a profession as a lawyer and entrepreneur, who began an organization whereas nonetheless in her 20s.
Although she had been politically lively for years, she made her greatest splash final month, when she helped produce and pay for a industrial for presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that aired through the Tremendous Bowl.
The $4-million funding within the advert, which was derided by a few of Kennedy’s family, amounted to a political popping out for Nicole Shanahan, a tech legal professional, entrepreneur and rich philanthropist. Shanahan’s profile might broaden once more on Tuesday, when Kennedy is ready to announce his alternative for vice presidential operating mate at an occasion in her hometown of Oakland.
Kennedy’s marketing campaign has acknowledged that he talked to Shanahan concerning the No. 2 spot, whereas additionally contemplating others, together with Aaron Rodgers, the professional soccer nice and fellow vaccine skeptic, and Mike Rowe, the host of “Soiled Jobs” and different actuality tv exhibits.
Kennedy, 70, has depicted the 38-year-old Shanahan because the voice of a brand new era, one not represented in a contest that pits the oldest president in historical past, 81-year-old President Biden, in opposition to former President Trump, 77.
Kennedy has denied hypothesis that Shanahan’s important contribution to his marketing campaign might be her deep pockets — which some have predicted will assist fund the costly and daunting effort to collect signatures to qualify the Kennedy ticket to look on 50 state ballots.
“One of many principal priorities of our marketing campaign is bringing younger individuals into politics and addressing the deprivation … and the hopelessness that has effects on this era,” Kennedy stated in an interview Monday with Chris Cuomo about his VP alternative.
The NewsNation host requested the candidate whether or not Shanahan can be a contender to be his operating mate “if she was broke.” Kennedy’s response: “Sure, completely.”
Shanahan didn’t reply to requests for remark. However those that have labored together with her previously warning in opposition to making assumptions about Shanahan due to her youth and relative inexperience.
Her boss at a Seattle regulation agency, the place she labored after graduating from the College of Puget Sound, stated the younger paralegal had ample widespread sense. Adam Philipp stated he continued to observe Shanahan’s profession after she left his agency, which focuses on patent regulation. He watched her create an organization, ClearAccessIP, that makes use of software program to assist firms handle and distribute patents and patent rights.
“I feel individuals would underestimate her at their peril,” Philipp stated. “She was and is the sort of one that was capable of construct groups that had been and are capable of execute in fairly a strong means.”
Shanahan’s story might need remained principally unknown to the bigger world had been it not for her 2018 marriage to Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google and one of many world’s wealthiest males. The couple had a daughter and separated in 2021. Brin filed for divorce in 2022.
The break up drew additional scrutiny when the Wall Road Journal reported that the couple’s breakup had been triggered by a short affair that Shanahan had with Brin’s shut pal, Elon Musk. The story stated the fling fractured the friendship of the 2 tech titans and triggered Brin to file for divorce. Shanahan and Musk each denied the affair, however the Journal stood by its reporting.
“My profession has been primarily based on tutorial and mental credibility, and I used to be being shamed internationally for being a cheater,” Shanahan advised Folks journal final summer season. “To be identified due to a sexual act is among the most humiliating issues … it was totally debilitating.” She equated the episode to being “painted with such an enormous scarlet letter.”
Kennedy and Shanahan’s alliance first grew to become identified final month, due to the Tremendous Bowl advert, which relied on imagery and music from a tv spot that John F. Kennedy used whereas operating for president in 1960. The late president was RFK Jr.’s uncle.
Shanahan advised the New York Occasions she had contributed $4 million to a political motion committee, American Values 2024, to assist pay for the advert. She stated she shared lots of Kennedy’s views concerning the surroundings, vaccines and youngsters’s well being. Like Kennedy, she expressed concern about vaccines, however stated she was “not an anti-vaxxer.”
The scientific and medical mainstream has soundly rejected Kennedy’s claims, together with that vaccines generally injure individuals and that they trigger autism.
Whereas some praised the Tremendous Bowl spot as a retro consideration grabber, Kennedy relations slammed it. Cousin Bobby Shriver stated his mom, Eunice Shriver — the candidate’s late aunt — “would have been appalled by his lethal healthcare views.”
Tensions between RFK Jr. and his prolonged clan haven’t eased since. Biden posted a message on St. Patrick’s Day, displaying him in entrance of the White Home with dozens of Kennedy relations, a few of whom sang his praises on the social media web site X.
On Friday, Kennedy Jr.’s marketing campaign supervisor, his daughter-in-law Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, responded on X that “Individuals are so uninterested in politicians dividing our nation’s households to maintain ahold of their energy.”
When rumors concerning the candidate’s VP alternative started to flow into final week, Fox Kennedy had posted one other message on the location, previously Twitter, chiding the media for speculating about Shanahan’s probabilities. However the put up went on to heap glowing reward on the tech legal professional.
“Her work on behalf of trustworthy governance, racial fairness, regenerative agriculture and youngsters’s and maternal well being displays lots of our nation’s most pressing wants,” Fox Kennedy wrote. She praised Shanahan for her work on AI, together with its use to root out “authorities corruption and abuses on behalf of the individuals.”
The marketing campaign supervisor additionally praised Rowe and Rodgers.
Shanahan’s path to a nationwide political stage appears as unlikely as any. She advised journalists in earlier interviews that she grew up with a father who suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar dysfunction and a mom who was a latest immigrant from China. It was “a really onerous childhood with a whole lot of unhappiness, worry and instability,” she advised Folks.
She described the web because the pressure that allowed her to achieve entry to the bigger world, making use of for faculty after which to Santa Clara College regulation college, the place she edited the Excessive Expertise Regulation Journal.
Shanahan has described herself as a “lifelong Democrat” and a “progressive” and has supported various political measures that match that description. She backed Measure J, the Los Angeles poll motion that required county authorities to spend 10% of unrestricted income — estimated to be lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} — on social companies together with housing, psychological well being therapy and different jail diversion applications.
She donated $85,000 to Proposition 57, the statewide legal justice reform measure that sought to scale back the jail inhabitants with sentencing reductions, partially by providing credit for rehabilitation and teaching programs.
Among the many many Democrats she bankrolled previously: Joe Biden, who obtained a $5,600 donation to his 2020 marketing campaign.
When she spoke to the New York Occasions concerning the Tremendous Bowl advert, she stated she initially backed Kennedy however was turned off when he dropped out of the Democratic primaries. She subsequently moved again into his column and stated she discovered he had “pockets of silent help in every single place.’’
Whereas nonetheless married to Brin, she based the Bia-Echo Basis, asserting in 2019 that it supposed to spend $100 million over 5 years on applications to assist girls develop into pregnant later in life, to overtake the criminal-justice system and to deal with the consequences of local weather change.
The kid-bearing subject grew to become central for Shanahan when she had hassle having a baby. She discovered it disturbing to search out so many within the fertility area who appeared unconcerned that so many ladies struggled to conceive by their mid-30s. She later grew to become centered on autism, when Echo, her daughter with Brin, was identified as on the spectrum.
Shanahan advised Folks she supposed to remain on the “innovative” of autism analysis and to work together with her daughter “by way of each stage of this.”
Kennedy’s marketing campaign web site invitations the general public to Tuesday’s VP rollout on the Henry J. Kaiser Heart for the Arts overlooking Lake Merritt. It provides tickets: from $2 for these “on a good funds,” as much as $500, together with “commemorative merch” and entry to a post-announcement reception.
“This occasion might be a pivotal second in our nation’s historical past!” the web site promised. “You’ll not wish to miss it.”
