Nicole Shanahan is ready to splash some more cash.
Shanahan, who is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate, posted Thursday night on X that she is, “gearing up to make some big donations to members of Congress who are protecting our Constitutional freedoms.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is at “the top of my list,” she added.
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Shanahan scored big in her 2022 divorce from Google founder Sergey Brin, who has a net worth of $135.1 billion, according to Forbes. She has helped finance RFK Jr.’s 2024 campaign for president with the money she received from the split.
Her alignment with Massie is a telling admission for a largely unknown figure who only recently burst onto the political scene. The Kentucky congressman is among the U.S. House of Representatives’ most conservative members.
He most recently voted this week with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in her failed bid to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson from his post—and has also opposed aid to Israel, claiming matter-of-factly: “I don’t believe in foreign aid.”
He’s also an anti-abortion ideologue. According to the non-profit organization Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which claims its aim is to reduce and ultimately end abortion in the U.S., Massie has “stood up against the ever-growing pro-abortion agenda of the Biden-Harris administration and the radical bureaucrats who are actively working to expand abortion access, resources, and funding.” The org added Massie has “voted consistently to defend the lives of the unborn and infants.”
In a 2017 statement battling against Roe v. Wade, Massie declared, “I believe that life begins at conception. I will always vote against taxpayer funding of abortion, Planned Parenthood, abortion pills, and embryonic stem cell research.”
During his 2020 re-election campaign, he was endorsed by Northern Kentucky Right to Life, adding, “I will always support pro-life candidates and have repeatedly voted to defund Planned Parenthood.”
Since joining the campaign, Shanahan has also upped her rhetoric on a number of topics, including “electromagnetic pollution” and her opposition of a number of vaccines. Last month, she added abortion to the list, posting on X: “I will speak personally. As a mom, and a person with a womb, I don't like the feeling of anyone having control over my body. It is coercive. It is wrong. But, I am also a woman that would not feel right terminating a viable life living inside of me, especially if I am both healthy and that baby is healthy. I can hold both beliefs, as someone who believes in the sacredness of life, simultaneously.”
She went on to claim that she would consider abortion under a number of extenuating circumstances including her health, the health of the baby, and “considerations of what happens to that baby if that baby is being born into a situation that cannot sustain a good and healthy life,” though added, “Let's center the conversation and bring it back to the people. Bobby and I are dedicated to bringing to light solutions in the best interest of mother and baby.”
In a recent podcast, however, her claims seemed to be inching closer to Massie’s—though she avoided answering directly on whether she supported abortion.
“Abortion when I was a little girl growing up was about choice and freedom and female empowerment, and it still represents that to many, many, Americans, the right to choose when you become a mother,” she said.
“But you have to also understand that this is before the age of apps, like cycle tracking apps. We have so many tools now, to track which days we’re likely to get pregnant, we have so many tools for birth control, and then I look at the issue of abortion and it has been completely politicized.
“It was politicized by Trump to win an election and then it was politicized by Biden now to win an election back through abortion, so you have this incredibly politicized environment about women’s pro-life or pro-choice and the reality is, we’re talking about women in almost the abstract, and so when I come as a woman, as a mother, and I’m looking at the fact that we have men talking about this as campaign platforms, and then I look at the reality on the ground, I think to myself, 'OK, let’s go back to the fundamentals of pro-choice.’ If there’s an accidental pregnancy and you’re a teenage and you’re terrified and you need support, you absolutely should have support. That support should provide guidance about what’s going on in your body, support socially, if you want to have the baby, support economically.
She continued: “And so when I think about pro-choice I think about it as objectively as possible as a woman, understanding what those moments are like, and we have to meet women where they are rather than politicizing the and turning it into campaign talking points.”
“If you’re forcing a woman to have a baby, that is a very painful situation for that woman to be in,” she added, appearing surprised while learning her running mate endorsed unrestricted abortion, “even if it’s full term.”
“What you need to do is create an environment in which that woman realizes this is a beautiful opportunity to become a mom and welcome a new life into this world and that it is the most sacred, wonderful, beautiful thing. And the only way you're gonna get there is if we stop terrifying women.”
Shanahan said she is one of the largest funders reproductive research. A 2018 press release from the Center for Reproductive Longevity and Equality lauds Shanahan for a $6 million donation, with Eric Verdin, MD, Buck Institute President and CEO saying at the time: “The goal of this new center is to develop strategies to prevent or delay ovarian aging.” A 2024 report in the Financial Times also describes her as “the most influential individual funder of reproductive longevity research.” A March report in Politico described the research as “unconventional.”
