RFK Jr. Unveils Running Mate in 2024 Presidential Bid

Thank you. Thank you. And I want to start out, first of all, for thanking all of you and thanking Oakland and thank all of you for being here today. I also want to thank the tribal chiefdoms, the Muwekma Ohlone tribe, and the Chairwoman of the Tribal Council for endorsing me today, for putting their faith in me. And they know the Muwekma Ohlone tribe, and they know very much that this struggle for Indigenous rights has consumed a lot of my life, my personal and my professional life, and that this work is going to continue when we are in the White House. The Muwekma Ohlones are one of the many tribes that were de-certified during the 1950s and 1960s, and these tribes need to be re-legitimized. And that’s something that I will do as soon as I get in the White House.

(01:32)
I want to say something about Oakland. My father spent a lot of time doing hearings in Oakland on the poverty issues for the Poverty Committee in 1967 when he was a United States Senator. And then, he came back here in 1968 on the presidential campaign. And during that presidential run, he made an unscheduled visit to Oakland’s Taylor Memorial Church. And he went there with Willie Brown, who, as you know, later became mayor of San Francisco. But at that time, he was an assemblyman, and he came to meet with a lot of local activists here in Oakland at a very, very violent and turbulent time. He met with the NAACP and the Black Panther Party, and it was a very rancorous meeting.

(02:32)
He was advised by the local police chief not to go. He attended with two of his companions, John Glenn, the astronaut, one of his best friends, Rafer Johnson, who had been the decathlon champion in 1960 and was one of my father’s closest friends. And the meeting was so rancorous and vitriolic, at that, at one point, Rafer and John Glenn advised my father to leave. People were insulting him, people were threatening him, and my dad refused. And he said, “This is between me and them. I need to hear them out. I need to hear what they’re going to say.” And he waited. He stayed throughout that meeting, and the next day, all of the people who were at that meeting signed up to join his campaign.

(03:25)
And the Black Panther Party provided his security detail here in Oakland and continued to provide security for him later on in the campaign in his convoys. And there was a lesson that I just wanted to share with you, because it’s a lesson all of us need to learn at this point in our history. And we need to start listening to each other, even when it’s difficult. We need to sit through the anger. We need to sit with each other and listen to the feelings and not walk away and not see each other as enemies, but learn to love each other, even through that anger and vitriol. We need to start coming back to each other as Americans again.

(04:28)
Now, the last time I was in Oakland was when I served on the trial team in the Monsanto cases. So we tried two of the three cases in this city. We won 289 million in the first. And then, the third one, which we tried here, we asked the jury for a billion dollars, and an Oakland jury gave us $2.2 billion. That brought Monsanto to the negotiating table, and we settled in all 40,000 cases. But I lived here for several months during that trial, and I got to really love the city. The Monsanto case was the latest in a lifetime of battles for me, to get poisons out of our food and out of our farms and to restore our soils. That effort has consumed a lot of my life. And I wanted a vice president who shared my passion for wholesome healthy foods, chemical free, for regenerative agriculture, for good soils.

(06:00)
And I found exactly the right person. And among other things, she has used, over the past several years, cutting edge technology, including AI, to calculate the catastrophic health consequences of toxins in our soil, our air, our water, and our food. Technology has been a lifelong passion for my future vice president. This is important, because I also wanted a vice president who shares my indignation about the participation of big tech as a partner in the censorship and the surveillance and the information warfare that our government is currently waging against the American people. And that’s why I’m bringing on someone with a deep inside knowledge about how big tech uses AI to manipulate the public. I want to partner with strong ideas about how to reverse those dire threats to democracy and to our freedoms. I managed to find a technologist at the forefront of AI. She has spent the last decade relying on neural networks, artificial intelligence, and cutting edge science to identify abuses in our government. She understands that the health of every American is a national security issue and a national security risk. Her work has proven, time and again, that health drives our economy, that it is the foundation of our mental health, our national happiness, our ability to lead the world in innovation and prosperity and in peace. I also wanted someone who was an athlete, who could help me inspire Americans to heal, to get them back in shape. And I’m happy to report that my vice president is an avid surfer, who attended school on a softball scholarship right here in Oakland.

(08:29)
I wanted someone who was battle tested, able to withstand criticism and the controversy and all the defamations and slanders and perjuries that are thrown against anyone who embarks on a presidential campaign. I wanted an advocate who has seen corruption of our regulatory agencies firsthand, who shares my indignation about the way it allows regulated industries to commoditize our food, our wildlife, and our children. I wanted someone who would honor the traditions as a nation of immigrants, but who also understands that, to be a nation, we need secure borders. I wanted a partner who was a gifted administrator, but also possesses the gift of curiosity, an open inquiring mind, and the confidence to change even her strongest opinions in the face of contrary evidence. I wanted someone with a spiritual dimension and compassion and idealism and, above all, a deep love for the United States of America.

(09:50)
And I found all of those qualities in a woman who grew up right here in Oakland, the daughter of immigrants, who overcame every daunting obstacle and went on to achieve the highest levels of the American dream. So that is why I’m so proud to introduce to you the next Vice President of the United States, my fellow lawyer, a brilliant scientist, technologist, a fierce warrior mom, Nicole Shanahan.

(10:55)
I am going to tell you a little bit about Nicole before we bring her out here. We’re going to see a video. And Nicole’s personal story began in Oakland, she was the daughter of impoverished immigrants. She grew up on food stamps and welfare in the city, beset by many, many other unique challenges, all of which she overcame. Her very, very American journey took her to a career as a patent attorney and as a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur and as a Stanford University fellow.

(11:28)
Like many of us, Nicole assumed our government was working for our people, that our defense and intelligence agencies wanted peace, that public health agencies wanted us to be healthy, that the USDA supported wholesome foods and family farms, that the EPA would stand up for clean air and clean water, that the Fed wanted prosperous America, that the Democratic Party was on the side of the middle class, the working poor, and Main Street small businesses, that scientists were incorruptible, and that the science was an exalted search for the truth, and that the President of the United States could always be counted on to defend free speech. I too used to believe those things. Do you remember those days? And she’ll tell you that she now understands that the defense agencies work for the military industrial complex, that health agencies work for big pharma, that the USDA works for big ag and the processed food cartels, that the EPA is in cahoots with the polluters, that scientists can be mercenaries, that government officials sometimes act as sensors, and that the Fed works for Wall Street and allows millionaire bankers to prey upon Main Street and the American worker. And that’s why Nicole and I both left the Democratic Party. Our values didn’t change, but the Democratic Party did. The things that we love are still the same. We love our families, our children, and our faith. We love clean air and clean water and productive soils and good food. We love the wilderness and our purple mountains majesty. And above all, we love our country.

(13:53)
We want America to live up to her highest ideals. We want her to be an exemplary nation again, a global leader in freedom, opportunity, and responsible government. We want America to be a peacemaker, a moral authority. We want our children to grow up as I did, in a country for which they feel love and pride. We want them to feel safe and to have every opportunity for dignity, prosperity, and community. We want them to have confidence in their futures. We want them to have the best education. We want America to be friendly to farmers and entrepreneurs. We want America to honor its veterans and its teachers. We want scientists to stand up for science and for truth, and we want our government to defend our right to free speech.

(14:58)
Nicole and I share all of these values. And you know what? Despite the artificially orchestrated divisions, nearly all Americans share the same values that we do. And I’m grateful that Nicole has put her self-interest aside and made the momentous and very, very difficult decision to embark with me on this extraordinary crusade to win back our country. And I was, most importantly, looking for a partner who is a young person. And Nicole is only 38 years old.

(15:55)
And I wanted that, because I want Nicole to be a champion for the growing number of millennials and Gen Z Americans who have lost faith in their future and lost their pride in our country. Many in our generation have stopped believing that older people, who have been running our government for so long, understand them or represent their interests. That older generation, that now dominates Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House is the same generation, the same people, who ran up the $34 trillion debt. And millennials and Gen Z and their children will shoulder the burden. It was my baby boom generation that unleashed the epidemic of chronic disease that has made America the sickest country in the world. The only response to this calamity by government officials today is to gaslight us into pretending that it’s all normal, that it’s not really happening. Nicole and I both share doubts about the corporate-captured uniparty and that it can produce leaders capable of imagining a different version of America, a hopeful version of the future. We both have doubts that either the Democratic or Republican Party nominees are capable of dealing with the complexities and fulfilling the great promise of a technology-driven economy. In the right hands, technology can be America’s salvation. It can give us the path out of debt chaos, out of environmental ruin, out of the chronic disease epidemic. But we both fear that, in the wrong hands, technology can turn its power against humanity. We don’t think that either President Trump or President Biden understands the promise or the peril of technology sufficiently to direct its trajectory toward freedom and healing and prosperity.

(18:03)
And we’re now witnessing this dismaying contest between the two oldest presidential candidates in history. Those two men, during their terms as president, both worked to close our Main Street businesses for a year, 3.3 million businesses, with no due process, no scientific citation, no public hearings, no environmental impact statement. They just told us to shut them down. Those policies, that both of them engineered, transferred $4 trillion from the middle class to this new oligarchy of billionaires. They created 500 new billionaires in 500 days, a billionaire a day. Together, they ran up a greater debt than all previous presidents combined since George Washington, two men with a single term in office each.

(19:14)
Now, they don’t want us talking about those things. They want us instead to hate each other, to fear the other guy. But to young Americans, they look like two sides of the same coin. If we vote for either of them again, we can expect and we will deserve more of the same, the annihilation of our middle class, the further impoverishment of working poor, more chronic disease, more epidemics, more environmental destruction, more debt, more war, and fewer constitutional rights. I’ve asked Nicole to use the platform

The vice presidency to speak for all, not just young people, but all the invisible voiceless Americans who feel let down by our government. As your vice President Nicole will represent working poor who feel forgotten, who sink every day deeper into debt. She’s going to fight for all those Americans who know what it’s like to skip meals to pay for gasoline, and who watch food prices spike ever higher and wonder how in the world they’re going to make it through the grocery store checkout line. I want her to stand up for the children who are receiving substandard educations and for the veterans who are feeding their families at soup kitchens. And for the 1.1 million American children whose parents served in Afghanistan and Iraq and whose silently struggled with PTSD and with traumatic brain injury. I want her to represent the mothers who struggle to protect their children from bad chemicals, bad pharmaceuticals, and bad food. As vice president, she will stand between them and the big ag, big pharma, the chemical industry, the processed food industry, the government regulators who are colluding to poison our kids for profit. And as vice president, she’s going to stand with me against the Military-industrial complex. And the neocon interventionists and all of their forever wars. In 1932 Franklin Roosevelt appointed my grandfather, Joseph Kennedy, to run his brand new Securities and Exchange Commission. My grandfather had been a stock manipulator on Wall Street and FDR wanted a chairman who understood the stock market inside and out as the only person who could reform it. In a similar vein, Nicole will stand up to Silicon Valley, which she knows inside and out. And she’s going to stand up to Wall Street with the big banks, the Larcenous K Street lobbyists, the regulatory czars, the Unbridled Central Bank money printers, the crony capitalists, and all of the other people who have turned our country from a democracy and into our corporate kleptocracy. These are the people.

(23:20)
The Air Cupidity drives our corrupt campaign finance system, which is nothing more than a system of legalized bribery. This is a system that has put agency capture on steroids and made our government regulators sock puppets for the industries that they’re supposed to regulate. The corrupt merger of state and corporate power now straddles our nation’s capital like a mythical harpy, sucking the economic, social, and moral vitality. Out of the nation’s polity of free citizens gorging itself on the bleaching bones of the American middle class. Nicole is going to help me free our country from that predatory cabal. Our independent run for the presidency is finally going to bring down the Democratic and Republican duopoly that gave us this ruinous debt, chronic disease, endless wars, lockdowns mandates, agency capture, and the same uniparty that has captured an appropriated democracy and turned it over to BlackRock State Street and Vanguard, and the other corporate donors. Nicole Shanahan will help me rally support for our revolution against the uniparty rule from both ends of the right and left political spectrum.

(25:04)
Now let me tell you what Nicole and I are up against and what we need to do to win and how we’re going to do it. The New York Times this week published an article estimating that the Democratic Party war chest will ultimately be, which is 1.1 billion today already, the largest in the history of any political party. Within a few months, it’s going to be $3 billion and the Democratic Party is not going to use that war chest to amplify President Biden’s voice, it’s using it to stop its opponents from getting on the ballot and to turn Americans against each other and inundate us with fear. Incidentally, the Republican Party will raise about the same amount. Does anybody here think that these big money donors who are giving all that money are acting out of a patriotic impulse?

No.

Do you think they’re acting out of a humanitarian impulse?

No.

No, of course they’re not. For them, this is an investment and they expect a return on that investment and they expect a very, very big return. The campaign finance system has transformed our government from a model democracy into a corporate kleptocracy, so we’re up against powerful… This campaign is up against the most powerful financial interest in history. We also face a determined campaign to keep us off the ballot by fair means or foul. Evidently, the Democrats have little faith in their candidate’s ability to win in the old-fashioned way at the voting booth. We are going to overcome these financial and legal challenges, but I want to talk about another obstacle that’s even more important is the obstacle of cynicism. It’s the obstacle of fear. It’s the deeply ingrained habit of voting for someone you have little passion for because he is the lesser of two evils because you are so afraid that the other guy will win. Well, don’t you want to vote for someone this time and not just against someone? Don’t you want to vote for a candidate and a country that you can be proud of?

(28:04)
I know you do because 70% of Americans say that they don’t want to have to choose between President Trump and President Biden. They don’t want to choose between the lesser of two evils again. They especially don’t want to choose between the two men who brought us the $34 trillion debt, the endless wars, the censorship, the corrupt merger of state and corporate power. Republicans and Democrats have taken turns in office for 30 years now, and all of these problems have just gotten worse. That’s why those same polls show that my approval ratings are far above those of President Trump and President Biden. Now both the Democrats and Republicans looking at those poll results and they’re devising ways to keep me off the ballot. They don’t want to give you the choice. When I was a kid, the Democratic Party was fighting, its primary fight was to make sure that every American had the right to vote and none of us were disenfranchised. But today’s Democratic Party is doing the opposite, is working to disenfranchise any Americans who they don’t think will vote for their agenda.

(29:27)
The principle technique is to call me a spoiler and instill fear in Americans that voting for me will get some other terrifying candidate elected. Our campaign is a spoiler, I agree with that. It’s a spoiler for President Biden and for President Trump. It’s a spoiler for the war machine. It’s a spoiler for Wall Street and big ag and big tech and big telecom and big pharma and the corporate-owned media and all the corrupt politicians and corporations. That’s why they’re trying to keep me off the ballot and to frighten you into choosing between the two tired and unpopular heads of the uniparty. Millions of Americans are not going to vote at all if they’re not given another choice. There is simply withdrawing from American democracy. Well, Nicole and I are going to give those millions another choice. The Democrats, Republicans are trying to divide America. They tell us to hate each other, to mistrust each other, to accuse each other of treason, to warn us against these apocalyptic terms that democracy itself is doomed if the other side wins. They turn families against each other, they turn neighbors against each other and friends against each other. They’re trying to divide America, but Nicole and I will unite it, and that’s our path to victory.

Yes.

That’s how we’re going to win. That’s how we are going to forge an unstoppable coalition of homeless Democrats and homeless Republicans. We’re ready to look at the universal values that unite us all and that every conscientious American wants the same way Nicole wants it and I wants it. And all those things that I described, our love, our children, good food, good soils, moral authority around the world, the end of the warfare state, an incorruptible government, all of those things we all want. If we can only persuade enough Americans to vote out of hope rather than of fear, we’re going to be in the White House in September, November. Now, we’ve all had the advantage of seeing what President Trump and President Biden can do for our country. Do any of you want more of the same?

No.

If you want more of the same, you should vote out of fear. If you want genuine change and you need to take a risk and join Team Kennedy, and join the new American Revolution. What that means is to vote from your conscience, vote from your heart, vote out of idealism, vote out of optimism for this country. Refuse above all to vote from fear. In 1776, there was a generation of Americans who believed in democracy and something that didn’t exist anywhere in the world, something that was so improbable, so implausible, so impossible, and most people thought it was a joke, and yet they took a risk, not a little risk, not the little risk that you’re taking today by going through a voting booth, they risked their lives and many of them lost it.

(34:08)
They risked their properties, they risked their reputations, and they gave us the democracy that we have today, the model democracy for the whole world. So they acted out fear, and if you vote out of fear on this election, you are dishonoring that generation of Americans and the other and the thousands and hundreds of thousands of Americans who gave their lives in the Civil War and World War II and World War I, and all of the other times that people went and risked their lives to defend our country. If Nicole and I can get Americans to refuse to vote from fear, we’re going to be in the White House in November. Nicole and I are running to help heal the symptoms of an ailing America, to heal our divisions, to heal our economy, to heal our mental health and our spiritual and our physical health. But we can’t do it alone, we need you. And now I have a governing partner who will fight for you and for your family until the last corporate kickback from our government, the last toxin is cleared from our water and our soil. Until the last American child gets to live a healthy life and to pursue their own happiness in the land of the free, until the last censor is gone from our government. I’m confident that there is no American more qualified than Nicole Shanahan to play this role, so I’m proud to introduce to all of you the next Vice President of the United States of America, Nicole Shanahan. Thank you all for [inaudible 00:36:22].

She’s a visionary leader and relentless in driving and supporting important projects to improve our lives.

Great perseverance, great leadership. Her success is unparalleled.

She’s an incredibly inspiring woman who touches the hearts and minds of everyone I have seen her bring together.

Okay. Great. What young people are faced with today is completely unprecedented, and it’s going to take a new generation of leadership that understands deeply those threats because they are themselves technologists to address the issues at hand. It’s going to take leadership that has spent their life in technology. It’s going to take leadership that understands what questions to ask, how to ask them, and what it looks like to implement a plan. This is not the America of the 1950s, this is the America of 2024, and in this America, it’s going to take communities coming to the White House that never have actually been in the White House. These are going to be tech communities, these are going to be Gen Z communities, these are going to be millennial communities who really believe that working together is going to get us to a healthier America, and solutions that actually work.

(38:15)
I was born in Roseville, California near Sacramento. Then my mom and dad decided to move back to Oakland into the home my dad grew up in. You learn from a young age growing up in Oakland that we are all made equal and we all get a shot at something great. And the color of your skin just gives you a different pool of cultural perspective. And I’m half Chinese, half Caucasian, but to the people around me, I was Nicole. My mom immigrated to the United States in 1983 from Guangzhou, China. My father in particular struggled with substance abuse, various mental health challenges. He relied on government assistance for a good portion of my childhood. Every time my dad lost a job, there wasn’t a lot of money to cover basic expenses like food, and we would get food stamps and go to the local grocery store with our mom, my brother and I. and at the checkout counter, I remember she would ask my brother and I to go stand by the magazine when it was time to pay.

(39:30)
It was hard, it was really hard. Those programs, they saved my family. They gave me a chance. I went to the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. I graduated in 2007, and I started working actually on medical device patents as a paralegal, I was always asked to be the resident law firm nerd that was in

… in charge of making sure the software always worked well and represented all the client data correctly, and I loved it. I was at Santa Clara Law School, which is really in the heart of Silicon Valley, and trains some of the top IP law professionals in the country. In 2014, I joined Stanford Law and Computer Science to become a CodeX fellow. My center at Stanford CodeX, one of our core themes is how to build humanistic programming into AI. AI unregulated can be disastrous for us. We’re already seeing early signs of it. And on day one of Bobby Kennedy’s presidency as his vice president, I will mobilize the best legal ethicists in AI on the planet, and they’re going to have knowledge of computational ethics.

(40:56)
So, after my two years at Stanford, I spun out my company ClearAccessIP. I then founded a foundation of my own called Bia-Echo Foundation, one of the largest funds in women’s reproductive health ever created. Human reproductive health is in decline globally, and at a pace that is actually causing alarm in certain countries right now. Women’s health is a direct indication of environmental health.

(41:25)
I gave birth to a healthy baby girl in November of 2018. That was the happiest day of my life. From time of birth until seven months, she smiled, she giggled, she paid attention, she hugged, she grasped her things. She had a great appetite. At around 10 months, things had changed dramatically. She wasn’t engaging as much and her energy didn’t seem as high and her muscle mass seemed weak. I would sit her to just sit on her own, and she wouldn’t be able to hold herself up when previously she could. She wasn’t speaking, she wasn’t pointing. She seemed kind of in her own world and the evaluator clearly identified symptoms associated with autism spectrum disorder. And it was then and there in 2020 that my life changed forever.

(42:24)
Chronic disease in children is due to environmental disruptors that cause inflammatory symptoms, which then reduce the child’s ability to heal. I’ve learned that the top environmental health exposures are really in three categories. There’s endocrine disruption, which is caused by various chemicals, chemicals in our consumer products, chemicals and preservatives in our foods.

(42:53)
The second category of environmental exposures are electrochemical in nature. That electrical interference comes in the form of our wireless technologies, our devices, our cell phones, and we have no regulatory body currently in the United States keeping an eye on this.

(43:12)
The third category of environmental exposures really is medications that we rely on for our healthcare system. And ironically, many of these medications are prescribed to help manage the symptoms related to exposures caused by categories one and two. It’s a band-aid that actually poses new risks.

(43:36)
I’ve spent my life in data and technology, and I know that there is a solution here to this problem. We have the tools today to get there, and if we are open to this conversation, we are on path to healing America. And that is a simple conclusion that I think any person in America can make once they have the information. We owe it to the American family to take these toxins out of our food and out of our water, out of our medicines.

(44:12)
This campaign is so much more than politics. This campaign is about what is sacred. And what is sacred is our health and our families and this land, this beautiful land that deserves much greater attention and care than we’ve given it.

(44:35)
I’m making this move as an independent now because I’ve been finding it harder and harder to find the leadership in the White House that represents the issues closest to my heart. And in order for us to get there, I think we all need to rethink what has happened to the DNC and the RNC for that matter. We need an opportunity. We crave an opportunity to see how we can serve in the best interest of the American public, outside of the system that hasn’t worked. We deserve a real election of optimism, and that’s what Bobby Kennedy gives us a chance at.

Ladies and gentlemen, the next Vice President of the United States, Nicole Shanahan.

Hi, everybody, and thank you so much for being here today. It is so good to be here in Oakland. This city will always have a special place in my heart. I grew up just a few miles from this very spot. My mother who’s standing right there with her phone up, she immigrated here from Guangzhou, China, and my late father was an Irish and German American. I want to tell you a little bit about my childhood, so you can understand the source of my politics and convictions.

(47:34)
My mother’s first job when she came to the United States in 1983 was as a live-in caretaker to an elderly woman here at Lake Merritt. By the time I was born, she worked as a dental office secretary. My father loved my brother and I dearly, but he was very troubled, plagued by substance abuse, and he struggled to keep a job.

(48:02)
From watching my father and his struggles, I learned not to be judgmental. He was doing the best he could. I think of him when I see the statistics on the millions of Americans who are addicted, depressed, or suffering. This is one of the epidemics of our time. It affects nearly every American family. I wish my experience was unusual, but it’s not. It has become part of my determination to do something for our country.

(48:48)
Every time my dad lost his job, our family just couldn’t cover expenses. Food, gas, clothing, upkeep. It’s adds up more than you have in this situation. I know a lot of Americans know exactly what that’s like, to just be one misfortune away from disaster. I don’t think we would have made it without food stamps and government help. My mom worked hard, but it wouldn’t have been possible to keep it together without that help. As you probably know, I became very wealthy later on in life, but my roots in Oakland taught me many things I have never forgotten. That the purpose of wealth is to help those in need. That’s what it’s for. I want to bring that back to politics too. That is the purpose of privilege.

(49:50)
I went to St. Mary’s High School, just a few miles from here. We have some St. Mary’s mothers here. In my junior year, I had another formative experience and that set me up for this lifetime of political consciousness. I applied for a program to live with families in El Salvador. In praying with these families and helping them rebuild after the civil war there, I learned what war really is. I learned how it rips lives apart, it brutalizes children, how it visits unspeakable horror on the innocent. And I also learned the resilience of the human spirit, and its infinite capacity to heal, to forgive, and to restore. El Salvador is where I came to understand war, but more importantly is where I also came to understand peace. That is what inspired me to my first political action in high school.

(51:01)
At the onset of the Iraq War, I became an anti-war activist. Yes. If I’m being honest, I didn’t really know how to do it. I printed pamphlets and I led a walkout and we went to our local radio station. But I knew in my bones then that violence begets more violence. I’d seen what that does to society and I didn’t want my country, the country I love so dearly, to be doing that in the world. So these are two of my political convictions I hold today. To serve peace, and to help those in poverty. So you can understand why I gravitated to the Democratic Party. Because that was supposed to be the party of peace, the party of compassion. Many Democrats, we still believe in those ideals, but unfortunately, as an institution, it has lost its way. 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. Yes. It is his commitment to peace and to the welfare of hard-working people in America that draw me, as a person of compassion, to his candidacy.

(52:59)
As recently as a year ago, I really didn’t think much of Bobby Kennedy because I didn’t know much about him. All I had was the mainstream media narrative that was effectively telling me horrible, discouraging things. But then a friend who’s here today pulled me aside and she said, “Nicole, please, do me a favor. Just listen to one interview with Bobby Kennedy. Just one.” And so I did. I did.

(53:31)
And then I listened to another one, and then another one. And I recognized that the person who I was seeing in these interviews was the exact opposite of the media slander of his character. I saw a person of intelligence, of compassion, and of reason. I saw a fellow lawyer who had committed himself to finding the truth and fighting for the environment and for people. I discovered a person who speaks out on issues that, even though they are critically important to human health and welfare, are consistently ignored by our government. And for the first time in a long time, I felt hope for our democracy again. We can do this. It’s possible.

(54:24)
One of those issues also happens to be a passion of mine and a focus of my philanthropic work, chronic disease. I got into it through my own journey of reproductive health, followed by a steep learning curve for caring for my daughter who has an autism diagnosis. In that journey, I discovered that women’s fertility is in precipitous decline around the world. We are facing a crisis in reproductive health that is embedded in the larger epidemic of chronic disease. Because it has been so personal for me and my daughter, I got deep into the research and consulted some of the best scientists and doctors. Let me tell you what I found. There are three main causes. One, is the toxic substances in our environment, like endocrine disrupting chemicals in our food, water, and soil, like the pesticide residues, the industrial pollutants, the microplastics, the PFAs, the food additives, and the forever chemicals that have contaminated nearly every human cell. Yes, and it makes you angry to hear this. It makes me angry to say it because we shouldn’t be here right now.

(55:46)
Second is electromagnetic pollution. You don’t hear politicians talking much about that either, but it is something we need to look at. As Bobby says, we need to investigate every possible cause of the chronic disease epidemic that is devouring our nation from the inside.

(56:07)
Third, I’m sorry to say, is our own medications. 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. We can and we will. Conditions like autism used to be one in 10,000. Now here in the state of California it is one in 22. One in 22 children affected. Allergies. Obesity. Anxiety. Depression. Our children are not well. Our people are not well. And our country will not be well for very much longer if we don’t heed this desperate call for attention.

(57:21)
I’ve spoken to our government agencies. Trust me, I’ve tried. I’ve spoken to senators. I’ve spoken to governors. They all know something is wrong, but none of them take any action. There is only one candidate I have met for President who takes the chronic disease epidemic seriously. It is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and I will be his ally in making our nation healthy again. Yes. Yes.

(57:55)
It is not about a new pill or “finding the cure.” We know the cure is cleaning up our environment and providing the basic public goods that are the foundational conditions for health and healing. It is about a shift in our priorities. It is about compassion. Chronic disease, addiction, poverty, depression, this is where Americans are hurting the most. It is time for politicians to listen. So here is how the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket is going to end the chronic disease epidemic. While Bobby is focused on ending the corporate capture of our regulatory agencies, I am going to assemble the best technologists and scientists in the world and we will use the latest in AI and computation and examine the health records databases of our nation and those of other countries who are also on the quest to solve chronic disease. We will find the answers. We will find the answers to our most pressing health concerns within weeks, not decades. We can if we have access to those databases. It is time to move out of the dark ages of medicine. We can solve the mysteries guarded by corporate influence. We can move from bandaid solutions and we can end this chronic disease epidemic once and for all. I believe it.

(59:49)
My sense is that most American moms and dads already know the truth of the matter, and it’s just long overdue that the duty of care owed to the

… the American family is actually given. We can find the answers conclusively. I have a background in tech, so I tend to think in terms of data. In my tech days, I developed AI-powered software to automate affordable legal services. Well, guess what? The CDC and research institutions have the data we need. We can apply technology to figure out environmental factors. We can figure out what’s making us sick. We just have to ask the right questions, do the right eat research, and apply the right tools. We have to rid science of the corporate bias that contaminates it today. Then we put this thing into reverse. So, actually the first issue that I applied my tech background to is criminal justice. It was across the bay in San Francisco where the district attorney’s office needed help examining thousands of police records, thought to contain evidence of racial bias, wrongful arrest, and patterns of prejudice. I put together a team of computer scientists to develop a computational method to collate these records and design a method for analysis. But, what I really learned through this was the sorry state of criminal justice in our country. It isn’t just about policing, it is about the school-to-prison pipeline. It is about a broken and dismally-function infrastructure. It is about recidivism that we have not taken the right approach to. How do we make our systems a system of rehabilitation and not punishment? These questions don’t have easy answers. I know this is hard. This is very hard. But they are the right questions to be asked and there’s only one candidate asking them, and it’s Bobby Kennedy.

(01:02:25)
And I’m going to mention one more issue close to my heart. This has to do with climate. My interest in health and solving climate issues has led me to the realm of agriculture. I realize that a nation’s health comes down to its soil and the people who work it. Hell, yeah. Healthy soil is the foundation of healthy food. It is the foundation of a healthy ecosystem, and it is our answer to the climate crisis. It is the foundation of healthy economy. But what politician besides Bobby, Kennedy, do you ever hear talking about soil? None. I’ve produced two films on the issue. Common Ground is the latest. We’ve got some common ground in Kiss The Ground people here. Thank you guys for coming out today.

(01:03:23)
I’ve talked to Congress people and senators, but all I’ve gotten are vague promises that never amount to real change. Republicans and Democrats alike have fallen under the sway of big agrochemical companies and food conglomerates. They might invoke the ideal of the family farm, but they have betrayed it again and again. So, I am entering myself. I know I am 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. And you know what? We don’t have to force anyone to do anything or to imitate them. All we have to do is change our system of regulation and subsidy to support those methods. We can no longer support extractive corporate agriculture. I’m so hopeful for this. I hope you all understand now what has brought me into politics. Hasn’t it?

(01:04:46)
And in this moment, I am leaving the Democratic Party. And I want to say two things about that. First, even though I am leaving the party, I believe I am taking the best ideals and impulses with me. The Democratic Party is supposed to be the party of compassion. It is supposed to be the party of diplomacy and science. It is supposed to be the party of civil liberties and free speech. And most importantly, the party of the middle class in the American dream. While I know many Democrats still abide by those values, I want to point out, and I’ve been in touch with many people in the Democratic Party … I do believe they’ve lost their way in their leadership. I worry for the party’s overwhelming interest in elitism [inaudible 01:06:08] liberty and winning at all costs. 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. I know this, because I’ve been in those circles for the last eight years and I have grown increasingly tired of it. It wasn’t until I met Bobby and the people supporting him that I felt any hope in the outcome of this election. As I reexamine my Democratic Party assumptions, I have 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, who understand ecosystems better than most. I have met mothers protecting their children who are searching every possible avenue for their health. And yet the Republican Party like the Democratic is letting them down, because the actions of the party are diverting from the values that actually support individual freedom.

(01:07:26)
In fact, 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. Maybe that’s why I see so many Republicans disillusioned with their party as I become disillusioned with mine. 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. This independent movement comes at a time of extreme division in America that threatens to tear this country apart.

[inaudible 01:08:14].

Yes. Let’s fix it. It is time for a [inaudible 01:08:19]. It is time, as Bobby Kennedy says, to focus on our unifying values rather than our divisions. And so, if anyone is listening who never considered an independent ticket, I want to extend this same invitation to you that my friend did to me last year. Please listen to Bobby Kennedy in his own words. Take a look at his vision for America. It is a vision that I share too, as I spend the next seven months of my life getting him on each and every ballot in this country. We’re going to do it. We’re going to do it. The vision we share is a vision of national healing.

(01:09:17)
It is an America that leads the world no longer through force of arms, but through the power of example. It is an America that wages peace through diplomacy. It is an America that had become the sickest, industrialized country on the earth and turned it around. We’re going to turn it around. It is an America where everyone who works hard can afford a decent life. It is an America where people of all races receive fair and equal treatment under the law. It is an America whose freedoms are the envy of the world. It is an America with honest and transparent government institutions. Can you imagine a country whose government doesn’t lie to you?

(01:10:18)
People talk about my age. It’s true. I will be the youngest vice president in American history. Let me tell you why so many of us young people have turned away from politics. It’s because we lost hope that change would ever come from inside the system. 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 in-authenticity. And that’s why Bobby Kennedy leads in all the polls among young people. We are hearing our voice in his. So, I come to you today as a former Democrat. I come to you as a woman, not quite 40. I come to you as someone who has experienced sickness and health and poverty and wealth. And finally I come to you as a mother. Most of the philanthropists I work with are women, other mothers. And initially I was a mother who’s here today who reached out to inspire support in this campaign. I never thought in a million years I would be up here running for vice president. No. No. But, what I am doing is I’m joining the millions of mothers out there who support this candidacy. They’re Republicans and Democrats and independents. They read the labels at the supermarkets in order how to keep their kids healthy. They watch in anguish, many of them, when their children suffer from chronic disease. They cry silently as their teenagers deal with depression, anxiety and addiction. They do their best to hold it together and they do because they’re fricking strong. They’re my heroes.

(01:13:18)
These moms, they’re my heroes. They’re the moms trying to make a normal life for their children in a world that has gone crazy. As a mother myself, who knows the firsthand challenges of raising a child with special needs, I promise to you to make this world a little less crazy. I will work with Bobby Kennedy to make America once again a country of peace, a country of compassion, a country that is prosperous and free. And this won’t happen overnight, but I have seen miracles that the human spirit can accomplish. I have seen its resilience. And most importantly, I have seen its capacity to heal. And what is possible for the human being is also possible for our nation. So, please join me and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the Healing of America. We’ve got this. We’re going to do this.

For everybody interested, if you want to stay for the VIP, you can still do that. The QR code is right here to sign up for the VIP, to meet the future president and vice-president of the United States in person. Grab the QR code. Thank you all for coming. God bless America.