Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro revealed how he was offended by a question asked by former Vice President Kamala Harris’s team during the 2024 election.
The Democratic governor was being vetted to potentially be Harris’s running mate in the race that she spectacularly lost to President Donald Trump. Shapiro recounted the process and his ire with the vetting team in his upcoming book, “Where We Keep the Light,” noting how he was asked if he was an “agent of the Israeli government.”
Shapiro was reportedly already annoyed by the “unnecessarily contentious” questions from the Harris team, according to a preview published Sunday, as one inquiry seemed to take things too far.
“Have you ever been an agent of the Israeli government?” President Biden’s former White House counsel Dana Remus asked the governor.
“Shapiro, one of the most well-known Jewish elected officials in the country—and one of at least three Jewish politicians considering a run for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination—says he took umbrage at the question,” The Atlantic reported on the excerpt from the book being released January 27.
“Had I been a double agent for Israel? Was she kidding? I told her how offensive the question was,” Shapiro wrote. “Remus was just doing her job. I get it. But the fact that she asked, or was told to ask that question by someone else, said a lot about some of the people around the VP.”
He revealed he was also asked if he’d be willing to “apologize for some of his comments about protesters at the University of Pennsylvania who had built encampments to decry Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and, in some cases, intimidated Jewish students.”
“It nagged at me that their questions weren’t really about substance,” the Jewish governor wrote. “Rather, they were questioning my ideology, my approach, my worldview.”
Remus reportedly suggested to Shapiro that the VP position “might be a financial burden for him and his wife.”
“Are you trying to convince me not to do this?” he wrote of the exchange.
“I wondered whether these questions were being posed to just me — the only Jewish guy in the running — or if everyone who had not held a federal office was being grilled about Israel in the same way,” Shapiro wrote, according to the excerpt.
He described the vetting “sessions” as “completely professional and businesslike,” but admitted he “just had a knot in my stomach through all of it.”
In her own memoir, “107 Days,” Harris claims she needed to remind Shapiro that “a vice president is not a co-president,” as he reportedly wanted to be more involved.
Shapiro called the claims “complete and utter bull—-.”
“I mean, she’s trying to sell books and cover her a–,” he said, adding, “I shouldn’t say ‘cover her a–.’ I think that’s not appropriate. She’s trying to sell books. Period.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida. Powers also contributes to BizPac Review.
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