Members of Kamala Harris’s team asked Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish, if he was an Israeli double agent, according to the potential 2028 presidential candidate’s new memoir.
The question came during the 2024 presidential campaign, as Harris weighed who she would 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 LightShapiro says Harris’ team was very interested in his background.
“If you were a double agent for Israel?” he wrote, describing his surprise at the question, in a passage that appeared from 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’ team wanted to know if he had communicated with an undercover Israeli agent.
According to him, Shapiro replied, “If they were hidden, I responded, how would I know?”
He later wrote that he understood 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 will 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, since he is the governor of the vital swing state of Pennsylvania.
In his book, which also appeared by The Atlanticthe Pennsylvania governor bemoaned when asked another question about Israel.
Harris interviewed Josh Shapiro to become her vice presidential running mate but ultimately passed on him (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
Harris’ team wanted to know if he would back down from his harsh criticism of students protesting against Israeli action in Gaza. He told its 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 worldview.”
He also suggested that Harris had done her time as vice president, describing it as a position with little authority.
“I was surprised at how much she seemed to dislike the role,” Shapiro wrote. “She noted that her chief of staff would give me my directions, lamented that the vice president did not have a private bathroom in their office, and how difficult it was for her at times not to have a voice in decision-making.”
Harris later selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to serve as her running mate (EPA)
However, both Harris and Shapiro have very different accounts of their meeting during the vice presidential selection process.
Harris wrote in her memoirs, 107 Daysthat Shapiro appeared to have ambitions for power that exceeded the authority normally given to a vice president.
She also alleged that Shapiro had a “lack of discretion” during the trial and that he “wanted to be in the room for every decision.”
Harris added that she had “strong concerns” that Shapiro “would not be able to fulfill a role as number two.”
When asked by The Atlantic about his thoughts on Harris’ allegations in December 2025, Shapiro gave a furious response.
“This is 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 Lightand suggested that his remarks during the vice-presidential selection process had been “analyzed, misrepresented, and hijacked 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 polls have 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.