What friday 9 p. M. Eastern on cspan or cspan. Org. Next, 2024 independent president i candidate robert f. Kennedy, jr. And his Vice President ial running mate Nicole Shanahan campaigning in austin, texas. Ey focus on several topics, including putting an end to chronic diseases, reducing the National Debt and protecting constitutional rights. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the next Vice President of the United States, Nicole Shanahan. Hi, everyone. Thank you to you all, take you to the brave and Innovative Minds today, thank you to those who are feeling feeling this country and healing american soil. I want to talk about soil. [applause] soil is not much of a political issue. When they surveyed the public and ask what issue do you care about, you can choose things like immigration, abortion, inflation, guns, the deficit, the warriors. But there has never been a checkbox for soil. I love soil. I important issue but it is part of something much bigger. I would like to talk about that bigger thing today. Healing the soil says were going to heal this country from the ground up. Yes. The foundation. A Nations Health is its soil. It is also the air and the water , the economic infrastructure thats of life itself. It has to be treated and respected as a public good. That is the most basic responsibility. Moms, you get this. You know that Health Comes First and then we can do other things. For too long our nation has neglected its foundation. Weve spent trillions on foreign wars while domestic infrastructure has fallen into disrepair. We have propped up wall street while businesses shuttered their windows. We have funneled wealth to billionaires. I know them all. And i can tell you most of them do not care that millions have fallen into poverty while they have fallen into wealth. It is not just that our soil is depleted, people are too. Americans whose finances are depleted and they are drowning in debt, americans whose health is depleted and you are barely getting through the day without pain. Americans whose hope is depleted and they struggle with depression and despair. But what i have seen is everyone of those conditions can be healed. But healing starts when you get serious. Healing starts when you make it a priority. Healing starts when you stop deceiving yourself that everything is fine. When you are willing to look at the root of a problem and work. That is what were going to do. Our politicians have been more concerned with slandering each other, they have a nord warning signs, turned their gaze away from National Health and they delude themselves with vain ambition and lose themselves to the temptation of power and money. I am sick of it. It is not just soil absent from the issues that have taken over political discourse. You will not see chronic disease even though it affects have of americans. You will not see decaying infrastructure. You will not see corporate capture of federal agencies. You might see climate change, but not the root causes of forever chemicals in water and food. Where is that . You will never see fentanyl mentioned. Or skyrocketing depression, the childcare affordability crisis. We have to talk about these things, open our hearts to them. Well, Robert F Kennedy and i are going to look where the politicians have failed. Yes. We are to do something. Honestly this movement of people has made a difference. Has anyone noticed new talking points from democrats and republicans . I heard donald trump talking about blockchain. In biden saying the epa is taking feedback in Drinking Water deep bass in Drinking Water seriously. And im counting each and every one of these as a win and i hope you will. The pressure we are putting on them to work on this is working for all of us, lets keep gawain. Yeah. We care about what the establishment has neglected. That is one big reason why i have entered politics. Until last year, i was a heavy Democratic Party donor because i believe that if i could get the ear of Party Leaders they would implement commonsense policies. When i got there ear when i got their ear, nothing seemed to get done and their efforts were laden with distortion. In my cynical moments i wonder if they were after my money. But i am not a cynical person so i supported them because i trusted they were sincere in wanting to make positive change. I think many of them want to, they cannot. They cannot because they are beholden to Party Politics and the insider games of washington, d. C. , they cannot do anything entangled in these corporate interests, stuck in hammerlock in congress and aral agencies. Most politicians are trapped and we are trapped. Or we were trapped there until now. [laughter] [applause] because robert f. Kennedy, jr. Is here. [laughter] he has taken charge for all of us and that can change. Two years ago i really wanted change. I started two years ago to look outside the party for someone who has experienced the wisdom and the wherewithal to lead this kind of transformation. I could not find anyone until i was introduced to robert f. Kennedy, jr. Yeah. Since listening to those early interviews with him and seeing him out day after day, the selfie line is out of hand. He has got Something Special that gets him out there day after day, pounding the pavement or the smooth and. He is in a class of his own, no comparison. Hundreds of politicians, hundreds and i never met a candidate like this. This transcends politics. Whoo he is willing to look from the perspective of solving them with longterm, cohesive strategies and he understands National Healing on a foundational level. Want to know why he knows how to do this . The last 40 years of his life, that is what he was doing. He will keep on doing it. Each and every day he is doing it. National healing is not only about policies, it is getting it done and doing it without worrying about your corporate donors. Since this is the objective leadership we have all been craving, words are weak. How nice would it be to put the trust in our leadership to put the health of the nation first . How nice to put resources from the war machine into the piece economy the peace economy. We need a department of transformation that is competent on fixing roads. We need actual, objective, unconflicted people. Not career politicians or corporate donors. We need to clean up our water supply and we cannot do it when our agencies are corrupted . So robert f. Kennedy, jr. Will help us secure the integrity of our food supply because usda will be run by a real farmer. I cannot wait for that. We will restore the spirit of our educational system by allowing qualified teachers, not the government, to run the classroom. And you know what . We are going to tackle the Mental Health crisis with guidance from doctors who put health above pharmaceutical bonuses. It is only going to be that set up that will allow us to feel trapped in government. National healing is not just about policy, it is how we communicate, love, trust, respect and a lot of people have been turned off not only because of failure, but because of the way political conversations are happening. The tone and how they talking to each other. You can barely call them conversations. It is a shouting match and each side agrees the people on the other side are abhorrent. We have to stop thinking of each other that way. We have to respect each other enough to actually listen, otherwise how will we restore semblance of coherent conversation. [applause] how will we remember how lucky we are to be protected by the constitution of the United States . We are so lucky. We will remember how lucky we are when we stop taking each other out, realizing that the essence of our relationship is what makes us capable of appreciating this country. So, you know, when you actually have a conversation with someone on the other side, republican, democrat, you realize there is more in common than you think. Even when you take on a wedge issue, you discovered that people, we are not monsters. Guns, abortion, immigration, most of us are caring human beings. Our political culture tries to convince us otherwise. It divides us into warring opinion of tribes and how are we going to heal when we talk like that . How will we tackle problems if we are not speaking coherently . That is another reason why i have allied myself with robert f. Kennedy, jr. Because nothing i have ever heard him say is designed to make you hate his opponents. There is no meanness, no mockery. This is not a campaign strategy, this is his nature. He always gives people the benefit of the doubt and listens carefully. That is the quality of leadership we need most right now. Our independent candidacy is not separate, it draws from left and right. It reaches outside of the left and the right. Our most Innovative Solutions come from outside politics in the realm of alternative. Yes, i know that sounds radical. I have seen the power of alternative ways of thinking, i have used alternative practices to restore my fertility and many of these practices have been used for centuries. I have seen alternative agricultural practices regenerate land and ive seen criminal justice restore ruined lives. I know what is possible when you think with an alternative and creative mindset, what is possible when we step outside of frozen habits, when we become independent. [applause] so i am really happy right now to welcome this wonderful man on stage. Lets welcome him now, please welcome our next president , robert. Robert f kennedy junior. This is a day of affirmation, a celebration of liberty. Experienced in the name of freedom. We are not on a chain. We must recognize the full human equality of all people, not any particular religion or race, not just for the wealthy, but to all of the people. For the fundamental reason that it is the right thing to do. A new twist for the countries most famous clinical dynasty, robert. Trying to heal a divided nation and return power to the people. [applause] we are told that our nation is hopelessly divided, but i found Something Different as i traveled the country. I witnessed optimism that i have never seen before. Something is stirring in us that says it does not have to be this way. I am here to declare independence from corruption which robs us of affordable lives, belief in the future and respect for each other. To do that i must declare my own independence. Independence from the Democratic Party. And from all other political parties. I have not made this decision lightly, it is painful for me to let go of the party of my uncles, father, ran father in both of my greatgrandfathers. My sacrifice is nothing compared to the risk our Founding Fathers took when they signed the declaration of independence. They knew if the revolution failed they would be killed. They placed everything on the line. When john adams put his pen down, he turned to those present in said sink or swim, live or die, survive or parish, from this day on, i am with my country. Im going to make that same pledge to you today so that i can stand before you as every leader should stand before you, free of partisan allegiance, backroom deals, a servant to my conscience, creator and. Every president enters office promising to unite the nation and work with people, none of them ever does. They have already chosen a side. I will not have that problem, i will build coalitions from both sides. And except for the small minority of Public Officials who are corrupt, im going to tell you a secret, they want liberation from a system that has captured them. Isnt that what we all want . Liberation from a system that robs our wealth, health, patriotism, ideals, freedoms and sense of ourselves as a good and capable people. In healing our nation, is it possible . Lets take back our country. God bless you and the United States of america. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, welcome the next president of the United States, Robert F Kennedy junior. [applause] thank you, everybody. Thank you, austin. What a start i want to start by thanking some of the people who appeared today. Jonathan moody for his music, jessica, jp sears, who my brother was sidebyside during the pandemic, one of the few people who remained funny. Willie d, thank you for coming down from houston. And Ryland Englehart who gave his life to getting us better food. And texas volunteers. They were there, those are the champion signature gatherers. We have an historic day in texas, we ended at 267,000 signatures. [applause] mr. Kennedy thats more than any president ial candidacy in the history of texas and in the history of our country. The Texas Legislature changed the rules in the last session to double the number of signatures collected because they thought no one would be able to do it. The pundits, you heard them from the beginning of the campaign, saying it would be impossible to get on the ballot and we got on the ballot in texas. If you can get on in texas, we can get on everywhere. [l applause applause] mr. Kennedy texas gave us 45 days to collect signatures, got more than double the amount we need. And i was just upstairs talking to the team, i was just completing the signatures and they said we are on our way to new york tonight. New york is the next one, we have 10 days now to complete. 45 days, the hardest states are new york and texas. We have more than we need in new york already. And the dnc has done everything in their power to stop us and will continue to do that, but we are going to get on the ballot in every state. I want to thank all of you who are part of it. And i want to say a couple of words about nicole. When we chose nicole, we have seen throughout our history that people who president ial candidates who chose unknown candidates for their Vice President have historically run into a lot of problems because those people who are inexperienced in national politics, when they are exposed to it, they collapse. Any kind of issues they have are amplified and they end up looking bad. And i have watched nicole since the day of our announcement. What she has been through has been extraordinary because she did not spend her lifetime thinking i am going to be Vice President of the United States. I called her on the telephone and said do you want to be Vice President of the United States . She said let me think about it and then we had dinner three nights later and she said i am going to do it. And, you know, im worried about it. I know how people are going to hold up, but you are walking into a buzz saw where you are derided, defamed. Im used to it, ive been going through this for most of my adult life. But to have that land on you in two weeks or three or four weeks, and to be able to withstand it and to come up and give a speech like that where every time every time i see her speak, i fall a little bit more in love with her because you do not see Vice President ial candidates most candidates we have today, they sound like they are doing a satire. In the stuff they are talking about is inane, cliched, simplifications, number sticker slogans. That is not what you hear from nicole. You hear a lecture about soil. There is no political scientist in the world that would tell you youve got to do a lecture on soil, they would love it. No one would tell her to do that, no one would advise her, yet she does it and we all love her because we see the integrity. We see the compassion for other people, for creatures with whom we share this planet and you do not hear that from our political leaders. You dont hear we are part of a giant family and the soil is part of it, plants are part of it and that is what we need to heal this country. Two days ago i did a podcast with a guy called john camp and he is a young he has a podcast himself, but he is a young farmer and he cannot have the camera on him because the amish can only use technology for certain purposes. I was able to see him through a camera, but he cannot use it. I had to promise i would never show the film. He is an extraordinary guy, a handsome, young, 35yearold guy with right eyes and a long beard down to hear. And i asked him about his life and he told me like most amish he has in eighth grade education. The amish leave school after eighth grade, but he had this extraordinary knowledge of the soils, plants, agricultural systems, immunology on which he has made himself a global expert. He said i said i spend a lot of time talking with scientists, with people who have a lot of letters behind their name. And i love listening to them talk because they have expertise, a grasp of a particular area of knowledge where you understand that you are listening to existential truths that they have devoted their lives to understanding. I felt like i was again listening to a professor at harvard because he knew so much about it and about 10 or 15 years ago, he was a pesticide dealer. His father is one of the biggest pesticide and fertilizer dealers in ohio and in amish country. A few years ago they had pest problems on their farm and they found the more pesticides they lied, they were consulting with professors on how to kill this pest in the next and the next. The more they applied, the sicker plants got, the more pests came in they rented a piece of land parallel to the piece they had been treating. They grew balance on parallel they grew melons on parallel tracks without pesticides to see what would happen. The area that had been saturated for years, plants were overwhelmed. On the track that was untreated, not a single test appeared. He said it was like a knife line between the rows of crops. One was healthy, the other was decimated. He said that prompted him and his father to go to a conference on pesticides and listen to a speaker talk about it. His father took the boys out to lunch and they said youre done, we will never use it again and they have now become he pledged