One of the biggest talking points from the Democratic Party is that they're the party that respects democracy while portraying the GOP as the party standing in the way. But according to RFK Jr.'s former running mate, Nicole Shanahan, the exact opposite is true. In fact, according to Nicole, it's the LEFTS treatment of her and RFK Jr. during his 2024 presidential campaign that made Nicole reevaluate everything after seeing the attacks and attempts to destroy their campaign coming from one side of the aisle.
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Nicole Shanahan is joining us. How are you, Nicole?
NICOLE: I'm doing well, Glenn. Thanks for having me back on. I'm good.
GLENN: I'm very good. I'm very good. You know, a few months ago, when RFK was running, and you joined.
I thought, well, there goes the conservative vote.
And anybody, you know, anybody who is watching it, because you are Oakland, California.
You are much more liberal. Or progressive.
And now, I'm reevaluating everything, again.
Because there are people that are on the left. Not left.
Well, that are -- well, lean left. That are -- have different points of view, but still love the country.
And we don't see those people very often. In -- in the -- in the news.
You know, and those people, we can get along with, all day long.
If you love the Bill of Rights, I'm with you.
I'm with you.
NICOLE: Yeah. There's a huge population out there right now. And they don't know where to go. A lot of them were attracted to our campaign. And our campaign was really a place to go, if you were kind of socially progressive or liberal. But intellectually educated. And saw what was happening with the Democratic Party, and just none of it reconciled. I mean, if you look at the Democratic Party, over the last eight years. You can't reconcile their relationship with the economy.
It doesn't make any sense. So if your businessperson went to -- and top educational institution, came out. Got a job.
Spent, you know, 20 years, of your career. In front of spreadsheets.
And you're seeing what's going on, under democratic leadership. Even on the state of California, it does not reconcile.
And so a lot of these folks, and lawyers too. Have nowhere to go right now.
And it's been really interesting for me, just in my personal experience. I'm an attorney. I came out of Oakland.
And I worked hard. And, you know, I did -- I did rely on government safety net.
To catch me. I was on government assistance. At times, as a child.
But it was -- it was never a place to stay. The goal was always to work your way out of that. And those were the foundations of the ethics that I grew up on.
GLENN: Right. Those are the ethics that I grew up on too.
You know, I learned about welfare from my father. He owned a bakery.
And a woman came in. And I was little.
And she used a welfare stamp.
To pay. And I had never seen one before.
And I said, Dad, that's not real money.
And he gave me the look of death. This little old lady, who was buying stuff. And he pulled me back, after she left. And said, don't ever say that. Ever. Ever again.
That woman is struggling. That's what we do.
That's what a government safety net is for.
For people who need it like her. Don't ever embarrass her again.
And I'm like, sorry.
Then later, I don't know, about six or eight months later, my dad happened to come up front.
And it was a guy who had food stamps. And he paid. And my father was pretty nasty to the guy.
I mean, he was very cold. And I asked him. I'm like, well, that guy gave you the same kind of money.
And he said, that man, I know. That man can work. He decides to live off the rest of us.
That's where it goes wrong. I think all of us kind of grew up with that. I mean, most of us.
NICOLE: Yeah. Yeah. Well, except for young people today. And I think that's where the left is cannibalizing the best of itself.
And I think cannibalizing because it's actually working against its own interests for compassion and social growth.
And -- and, you know, trying to figure out how to help people.
Get through difficult times. I think that how it's cannibalizing itself really exists. And the identity politics.
I know you talk a lot about that. But I experienced it as a philanthropist. Trying to go back to Oakland.
And trying to really work on the issues that matter. And identifying them, with just a straight logical process.
I looked at the issues, around homelessness.
Around drug abuse. Around the education gap. And I realized so much of it has to do with nutrition and health.
And so I went about, trying to fix that, and I will tell you, all of the NGOs, I was approached by. And worked with.
None were interested in real food.
A lot of them were interested in activism, and funneling millions of dollars into these regrant programs.
That don't actually help people.
And make them reliant on these nonprofit dollars.
And so the mechanics of social mobility.
And you can look at it, strictly through the lens of economics. You can look at it through social dynamics. And you come out, realizing that you have to invest in -- in schools, in education, clean water say huge one. But also food.
Kids underperform when they don't eat well. And the fact that they're not addressing this on the left. That there's no NGOs. That are sincerely working on this.
Made me realize, that that entire framework. The culture of that -- that thinking about poor versus wealthy. Or black versus white.
It's all wrong. It's just the wrong way of looking at it.
And then realizing, how many people are profiting off of that. Model of the world. That framework of the world.
It's very predatory. It's predatory.
GLENN: It's grotesque.
NICOLE: Yeah. It's grotesque. It's predatory. It actually feeds into the cycle of racism. And it doesn't work. And things have actually gotten worse, as these NGOs have just gotten away with this kind of bad behavior.
GLENN: So, Nicole. What, what moved you to say, I think I've got to go stand with Donald Trump?
I mean, what?
That had to have shocked you, when you thought that.
What moved you there?
NICOLE: Well, you know, I -- there were so many things that have led to it.
But I will say that, when I left the democratic party, there were threats, kind of lobbed my direction.
But they were -- they kind of seemed like silly threats.
Like, oh, you'll never make it.
We'll -- they will do everything they can to ruin your reputation.
The machine is going to be pointed at you.
And I don't think you realize what we have in this machine. And I was like, oh.
Yeah. I can overcome that.
That's all silliness.
And -- and then, you know, and the then the media.
So first they unleash the media on you.
And I'm like, you know, maybe these things can be disproven.
Lost a lot of respect for the media. But I already had lost quite a bit of respect for them, prior.
And you can kind of get over all that name-calling. And once people have a chance to know, they realize that the media really had so much of you wrong. But then -- you know, then came the attack on our campaign directly.
And it all came from the left. None of it came from the right.
And even though, Republicans have actually out earned or out raised the Democrats. Republicans don't spend the money attacked their opponents, the way the Democrats do.
And this is the really underhanded stuff. That really makes you question election integrity.
In ways that I had actually never questioned election integrity.
I didn't believe that, you know, there was election interference in 2020.
I didn't believe the narrative coming from the right. At the election, was stolen.
And so --
GLENN: Do you now?
NICOLE: I do now. I do now.
GLENN: You do now? What brought you there?
NICOLE: You know, lived experience. They say the two things that really get people to change their minds are grief and God.
And I have to say, there are some really heart breaking moments during this campaign. We gave it everything.
And we followed the black letter law.
Very precisely.
GLENN: Yeah.
NICOLE: And we did -- the amount of heart and soul, and tears. And running around.
I mean, people were just constantly sweaty on our campaign. Because everyone wore six different hats.
And, you know, they would be crossing the country, four times every few days. I mean, it was -- it was so much work. And we did. We succeeded.
What many people thought was impossible.
Which was even just getting on and off the ballots. All 50 ballots. And we did.
The day that we did. That same, just within a few hours. You found out that New York. And they had been suing us.
We had won, seven cases. Seven of these ballot cases, where the Democratic Party came in, or they're running PACs, and sued us.
Attempted to sue us, to get us removed from the ballots. Which I can't believe is even legal. That a political opponent can sue you, can take you off the ballot.
But it's apparently common practice for the Democrats.
GLENN: It's crazy.
NICOLE: And Republicans still do this.
Republicans just don't, because they respect third parties. They respect democracy. They respect the things that make democracy a democracy.
So, anyway, we won all seven. We were seven-zero. We were feeling good. We just did this big press event.
Then New York came along. And the case in New York really opened my eyes, because this was a judge that was not acting on behalf of the American public.
This was a judge acting on behalf of the democratic party.
And there was -- there was just no room, for a legal argument. They seemed to have already been made by the time they arrived.
They treated Bobby with a petty criminal.
I later testified. My experience testifying. So it just got awful. Like I had done something wrong, by trying to run as a third party in this country.
And I think through this process and then realizing the extent of how much they're willing to denigrate the democratic process. In this country.
To win, and how entitled they feel, doing so.
And, you know, Bobby and I are -- our personalities are very much aligned with that California liberal mentality.
And to -- to be treated by friends, colleagues. People that know you. Like this.
Made me realize that that, something was very, very wrong.
And so -- I will say Trump. But, sorry, I don't want to cut you off. Go on.
GLENN: Nicole, you were -- you were in the middle of talking. And you were -- you know, when you said, there's two things that change you, God and grief. And you started going down that road. You know, about the grief you felt.
I remember early on, when I realized, oh, my gosh.
This system is not what I thought it was. I actually felt like I was in mourning trial.
It felt like part of me. My belief died.
And it was really hard to get through.
But if you get through it. It makes you stronger.
NICOLE: Absolutely.
And I will say, that the people that I'm trying to reach out to, today.
Are those that have a lot at stake.
These are moms. Who have their life of their children at stake right now.
Who have seen the system failing them, and their kids.
Trying to dissect a way, parental rights from their children.
And they dislike Donald Trump, because they view Donald Trump as a misogynist. And these are the conversations that I will be investing in, over the next several weeks. In the lead-up to the election. It's really digging into people's perceptions of Donald Trump, as this, you know, really kind of unsavory character.
And I have personally been doing my own fact-checked.
I will be releasing some of that soon.
We have -- I did a series with this really wonderful young 25-year-old journalist, Blake Warren, called TDS Therapy Hour.
Where I read letters that I've received from people. With grave concerns about our alignment with Donald Trump. And we impact all of those concerns very patiently, one after another.
GLENN: Great.
So great.
NICOLE: And I think that's how we do it, again. I know you were a Never Trumper. But I think once you realize how manipulated and programmed we are, by the mainstream media, to see Donald Trump, as this horrific personality. And once you start unpacking truth. You can begin to see truly what they've been up against.
GLENN: So, Nicole. I know you're out of time.
I know you have to run as well. I would love to have you back. I think you're absolutely fascinating.
And you are a very important voice to speak to women, who do have that feeling.
And are absolutely convinced to their core, and I would love to have you back.
Nicole, thank you so much.
NICOLE: Thank you. Have a good one.
GLENN: Backtothepeople.net. Backtothepeople.net. Nicole Shanahan.