Nicole Shanahan, the Silicon Valley investor and running mate to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is putting an additional $8 million into their independent presidential campaign. The Wednesday night donation, during a comedy fundraiser in Nashville, brings her total contributions to $10 million. There are concerns Shanahan is essentially a “pay to play” running mate. Sources say her money is essential to RFK Jr.’s efforts to secure ballot access, but she “lacks the qualifications to actually do the job.”
Shanahan, the ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, also gave $4 million to American Values 2024, a Super PAC supporting Kennedy, for a Super Bowl advertisement prior to being made running mate.
She is a lawyer and advocate for “criminal justice reform,” with a San Francisco Magazine profile saying she has been “devoted” to this cause “for years, long before the Black Lives Matter movement.”
Before backing Kennedy, Shanahan was a donor to Joe Biden — she gave $30,000 to his reelection campaign — as well as the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue.
Allies of Donald Trump, including Donald Trump Jr., believe Kennedy, himself a lifelong Democrat, is a “plant” to hurt the Trump campaign.
While RFK Jr. appears to take support from both Trump and Biden, some data indicates he hurts the former president more than the incumbent, and has attracted the support of many more Trump donors than Biden donors.
Trump has indicated he understands the threat, which National Pulse editor-in-chief Raheem Kassam has outlined at length on multiple occasions.
Is RFK's Presdidential run a psyop? @RaheemKassam thinks so.
Check out this snippet of our full conversation coming at you on Monday.
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— Jeremy Ryan Slate (@JeremyRyanSlate) November 10, 2023