Kamala Harris’ team asked Jewish governor Josh Shapiro if he was an Israeli double agent, he writes in new memoir

Kamala Harris’ team asked Jewish governor Josh Shapiro if he was an Israeli double agent, he writes in new memoir

Owen Scott

Mon, January 19, 2026 at 9:54 AM UTC

3 min read

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Kamala Harris’ team asked Jewish governor Josh Shapiro if he was an Israeli double agent, he writes in new memoir

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Members of Kamala Harris’ team asked Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish, if he was an Israeli double agent, according to the 2028 potential presidential candidate’s new memoir.

The question came during the 2024 presidential campaign, as Harris weighed who to choose as her running mate.

Shapiro was at the top of her list, along with Senator Mark Kelly and her eventual choice, Governor Tim Walz.

Now, in his book, Where We Keep the Light, Shapiro says that Harris’s team was very interested in his background.

“Had I been a double agent for Israel?” he wrote, describing his surprise at the question, in an excerpt seen by The New York Times.

According to him, the vetting team replied, “Well, we have to ask.”

Kamala Harris has been accused of asking a potential running mate if he was an Israeli spy (Getty Images)

Shapiro also alleged that Harris’s team wanted to know if he had communicated with an undercover Israeli agent.

According to him, Shapiro answered, “If they were undercover, I responded, how the hell would I know?”

He later wrote that he understood that the questioner, Dana Remus, a former White House counsel, was “just doing her job.”

However, he added that he believed it “said a lot about some of the people around the VP.”

Kamala Harris would eventually lose the 2024 election, with her opponent, Donald Trump, winning in a landslide. At the time, many criticized her decision to pass over Shapiro, given that he is the governor of the vital swing state of Pennsylvania.

In his book, which was also seen by The Atlantic, the Pennsylvania governor bemoaned being asked another question about Israel.

Harris interviewed Josh Shapiro to become her vice presidential running mate but ultimately passed him over (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Harris’s team wanted to know whether he would step back from his fierce criticisms of students protesting Israeli action in Gaza. He told her representatives that he remained firm in his position.

“It nagged at me that their questions weren’t really about substance,” he wrote. “Rather, they were questioning my ideology, my approach, my world view.”

He also suggested that Harris had loathed her own time as vice president, describing it as a position with little authority.

“I was surprised by how much she seemed to dislike the role,” Shapiro wrote. “She noted that her chief of staff would be giving me my directions, lamented that the vice president didn’t have a private bathroom in their office, and how difficult it was for her at times not to have a voice in the decision making.”

Harris later chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to serve as her running mate (EPA)

Both Harris and Shapiro have very different accounts of their meeting during the vice presidential selection process, though.

Harris wrote in her memoir, 107 Days, that Shapiro seemed to have ambitions for power exceeding the authority normally given to a vice president.

She also alleged that Shapiro had a “lack of discretion” during the process and that he “would want to be in the room for every decision.”

Harris added that she had a “nagging concern” that Shapiro would be “unable to settle for a role as number two.”

When asked by The Atlantic about his thoughts on Harris’s allegations in December 2025, Shapiro delivered a furious response.

“That’s complete and utter b*****t. I can tell you that her accounts are just blatant lies,” he said.

He offers a different account of events to Harris in Where We Keep the Light, suggesting that his remarks during the vice presidential selection process had been “analyzed, misrepresented, and picked apart by members of the vice president’s team.”

Both Shapiro and Harris are expected to be leading candidates in the 2028 race for the White House.

Recent polling suggested that Harris is the most likely candidate to become the Democratic nominee, although California Governor Gavin Newsom is also enjoying a surge in support.

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