May 11, 2026
(Philadelphia, PA) — Last week, 314 Action President Shaughnessy Naughton joined Molly Jong-Fast on Fast Politics with Molly Jong-Fast. On the podcast, Shaughnessy spoke about 314 Action’s work electing scientists to office over the past decade, RFK Jr.’s failures as the Health and Human Secretary, and what it means to elect a doctor to Congress.
“We are coming up on our 10th anniversary of 314 Action, and have done a lot of work in bringing more scientists and doctors into Congress and all levels of government,” said Shaughnessy Naughton, President of 314 Action. “They went to school to do something completely different, but a lot of them are feeling compelled to take this step into public office because of the onslaught of attacks—especially from this administration, on public health, on science, and our future ability to be a world leader in science and innovation.”
Listen to Fast Politics with Shaughnessy Naughton and Molly Jong-Fast here.
Key quotes from Shaughnessy Naughton, President of 314 Action:
On 314 Action endorsed candidates:
“We recently endorsed Dr. Jasmine Clark. She is a microbiologist and a state legislator running for Congress in Georgia. We helped elect her to the State House a number of years ago, and have continued to work with her through the years, and are really excited about her candidacy.”
“We also are really excited about Dr. Annie Andrews running for Senate against Lindsey Graham. He has an all time low approval rating. You know, she is putting together strong fundraising numbers. You might remember that the measles outbreak ground zero was South Carolina earlier this year, and she really had to field a lot of questions and concerns from citizens whereas the Senator was just completely missing.”
On what it means to have a scientist or doctor in office:
“People trust doctors and nurses. There’s an innate trust in people that go into that profession, that go to help and to spend their lives making people healthier and and safer. We’ve seen that play out in the values and experience they bring to public office.”
“What the folks that we elect do is they focus on issues that might be overlooked by the traditional members of Congress.”
On RFK Jr.:
“This is where it’s so important that we actually pay attention to what he does and not what he says. No one doesn’t want to make America healthier, but we know we don’t do that by cutting off food stamps, by cutting off people’s access to health insurance, and by approving products that are known to be harmful to human health.”
“You know, even the glyphosate executive order that came out earlier this year…If there was one thing that I thought RFK Jr was committed to, it was his campaign against Roundup. And instead, with the executive order, he just threw that right out the window to go along with Trump’s policy of putting something that is pretty clearly harmful to human health, more into our food production.”
On Trump’s cuts to research:
“Let’s just look back in the last year and what research was unfunded by the Trump administration, the research into this virus. There are consequences to taking a chainsaw to our research institutions and our ability to produce quality research, and we are seeing it play out right now. It didn’t even take five years.”
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314 Action is the only national organization working to recruit, train and elect Democratic scientists across all levels of government—from the Senate down to local school boards. The organization is powered by a grassroots community of over six million people supporting scientists and health care professionals who will use science and facts to address the most urgent issues facing our generation.