Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent anti-vaccination activist, has named Nicole Shanahan, a wealthy Silicon Valley lawyer, as his running mate. Shanahan previously donated $4 million to Kennedy’s super PAC, which helped fund a 30-second campaign ad during this year’s Super Bowl.
Shanahan, who was married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, has donated heavily to Democratic candidates in the past. In his campaign announcement speech, Kennedy called his running mate “just the right person” because he “shares my passion for wholesome food, chemical-free regenerative agriculture and good soils.” He called her a “technologist on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence” who uses “neural networks” to “identify abuses in our government.” He also praised her for using “cutting-edge technology, including artificial intelligence, to calculate the catastrophic health consequences of toxins in our soil, air, water and food.”
In her own follow-up speech, Shanahan called Kennedy “the only anti-war candidate today.”
Kennedy’s husband is curb your enthusiasm Actor Cheryl Hines has previously promoted vaccine misinformation, and the Center to Counter Digital Hate named him one of the biggest spreaders of COVID-19 misinformation. In 2021, he was banned from Instagram for repeatedly sharing misinformation. The ban is lifted in 2023.