Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has revealed the shock question Kamala Harris’ team used to vet him as a possible running mate for her 2024 presidential campaign.
Shapiro, who announced last week he is running for a second term as governor of the battleground state, has also been singled out as a possible Democratic presidential candidate for 2028.
However, in a new memoir obtained by The Atlantic, the 52-year-old said his Jewish faith came into play when Harris’ team conducted an intense vetting process for her critical vice president position.
In his book, Where We Keep the Light, released later this month, Shapiro revealed the alarming question posed to him by Dana Remus, a former White House counsel under President Joe Biden who went on to be a senior member of Harris’ VP vetting team.
“Have you ever been an agent of the Israeli government?” Shapiro said Remus asked him.
“Was she kidding?” he wrote in his memoir. “I told her how offensive the question was.”
He wrote in his book that Remus replied, “Well, we have to ask, we just wanted to check.” She also asked, “Have you ever communicated with an undercover agent of Israel?”
“If they were undercover, I responded, how the hell would I know?” he wrote. “I calmly answered her questions. 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 people around the VP.”
The Daily Beast has contacted reps for Shapiro and Harris for comment.
“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,” he wrote.
He added, “These sessions were completely professional and businesslike. But I just had a knot in my stomach through all of it.”
Shapiro has stated that he considers himself a Zionist. He openly discusses his faith, while he and his family had to be awakened and evacuated last April after their residence was firebombed hours after celebrating the Jewish holiday of Passover.
Harris eventually selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate. At the time, CNN’s Jake Tapper suggested Shapiro may have been passed over because of his open support for Israel after the Hamas terror attack.
Harris released her own book, 107 Days, last year, covering her political career alongside, and then replacing, Biden as the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate.
In her book she said she felt that Shapiro “would want to be in the room for every decision,” and “had a nagging concern that he would be unable to settle for a role as number two and that it would wear on our partnership.”
However last month in an explosive interview, Shapiro called parts of her book “complete and utter bulls--t.”
Harris wrote Shapiro was overly concerned with the decor of the VP’s office and that he demanded a large role in her administration. She wrote she had to remind him “he would not be co-president.”
“She wrote that in her book?,” Shapiro told The Atlantic when confronted with the passages. That’s complete and utter bulls--t.”
“I can tell you that her accounts are just blatant lies,” he said. “I mean, she’s trying to sell books and cover her a--.”
He then corrected himself, saying, “I shouldn’t say ‘cover her a--.’ I think that’s not appropriate. She’s trying to sell books. Period.”
Shapiro’s spokesman, Manuel Bonder, told the New York Times that the governor “wrote a very personal book about his faith, his family, and the people of Pennsylvania he has learned from and fought for throughout his life in public service. The 2024 election is one small part of his much broader story.”
