In 2015, former astronaut Mark Kelly rode a motorcycle onto a stage in China, with an American flag on one handlebar and the flag of the People’s Republic of China on the other. After dismounting, he told the audience before him how terrific Shaklee vitamins were, and how he took Shaklee Vitalizer on the space shuttle Endeavour in 2011, an out-of-this-world event honored on the Shaklee Facebook page.
By Jim Geraghty
“I took Shaklee vitamins and the Shaklee rehydration drink while in orbit aboard the space shuttle!” Kelly said, pumping his fists before the audience. “They worked very well for me in a very demanding environment. Now, it is up to you. It is up to all of you to take those tools that Shaklee and Roger” — company CEO Roger Barnett — “has given you, and turn it into something big! Each and every one of you can create your own successful Shaklee business, and it is the rewards from that business that will help you achieve your own dreams!”
In a video of his appearance in China, a Mandarin-language introduction says Kelly “lives in the hearts of the American people.” Then Kenny Loggins’s “Danger Zone” — straight out of “Top Gun” — plays, and Kelly drives his double-flagged motorcycle onto the stage.
Yes, that Kelly. The former Navy combat pilot in the Gulf War, the Democratic U.S. senator from Arizona since 2020, and a guy who’s reportedly on the shortest of shortlists to be Vice President Harris’s running mate.
Are we paying our astronauts enough? Just how hard up for cash was Kelly, who had retired from the Navy and NASA duty four years earlier, when he decided to fly to China to tout this stuff? What, did he have to settle for this because Ben Carson already had the Mannatech gig tied up?
It was a family affair, as the senator declared in a 2016 video — wearing his blue NASA astronaut jumpsuit. Speaking of his twin brother, astronaut Scott Kelly, “who just got back from the International Space Station,” Kelly said, “we’re really excited to be with you at Shaklee Live in Orlando coming up this August. You know, I told my brother all about Shaklee, Roger and the Shaklee difference. He even took Shaklee vitamins with him up in space with him, to the International Space Station, and I did, too.”
If the words “every one of you can create your own successful Shaklee business” made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, you get a gold star. Yes, Shaklee is a multilevel marketing company. Those aren’t illegal, but the Federal Trade Commission warns, “most people who join legitimate MLMs make little or no money. Some of them lose money. In some cases, people believe they’ve joined a legitimate MLM, but it turns out to be an illegal pyramid scheme that steals everything they invest and leaves them deeply in debt.”
Nice gig, Senator. It makes your $55,000 speech in 2018 for Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, then the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, look respectable. (Kelly returned the money amid his 2019 Senate candidacy; the United Arab Emirates’ human rights record at that time and since is … bad. Lots of politicians equivocate about U.S. alliances with dubious Middle Eastern allies. But it’s unclear how many have accepted five-figure checks from them.)
No doubt, some Kelly fan is scoffing and insisting this is no big deal, and that surely Donald Trump — the guy behind Trump University — is the last person who could criticize Kelly for making a quick buck on an unsavory endorsement deal. Then again, the whole point of the Democratic ticket is to be a clearly better option than Trump, not just a different flavor of the same willingness to smile for a quick buck from chumps.
If Harris chooses Kelly, the Trump campaign would likely try to tie Kelly’s vitamin-pushing days to the Chinese investors in Kelly’s balloon company. The campaign ad labeling Kelly a “Mark-churian candidate” practically writes itself. But there would be no need to gild the lily; the absurd image of Kelly on the motorcycle, touting Shaklee vitamins and the Shaklee rehydration drink, is thoroughly cringe-inducing.
And there’s no getting around it. For a stretch, Kelly’s name, image and reputation — largely built at NASA — was for sale. Choose carefully, Madam Vice President.
