Former VP Contender Josh Shapiro Says Harris Team Asked If He Was an “Israeli Agent”

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro says he was asked whether he had ever been “an agent of the Israeli government” during the internal vetting process to serve as Kamala Harris’s running mate in the 2024 presidential campaign, according to his upcoming memoir.

The account appears in Where We Keep the Light, a book set for release later this month. Shapiro writes that the question was posed by Dana Remus, who served as a senior member of Harris’s vice-presidential search team during the selection process that followed President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race.

According to Shapiro, the inquiry came after what he describes as an already contentious round of questioning. “Have you ever been an agent of the Israeli government?” Remus asked, he writes. Shapiro says he was taken aback by the wording. “Was she kidding?” he recalls responding. “I told her how offensive the question was.”

Shapiro writes that the exchange escalated when Remus followed up by asking whether he had ever communicated with an undercover Israeli agent. “If they were undercover, how the heck would I know?” he says he replied. While emphasizing that he answered the questions calmly, Shapiro adds that the moment left an impression. “Remus was just doing her job. I get it,” he writes. “But the fact that she asked, or was told to ask that question by someone else, said a lot about people around the VP.”

Shapiro is Jewish and has spoken publicly about his faith throughout his political career. Earlier in life, he spent time in Israel as a student and volunteer on a kibbutz and army base. 

The governor was widely viewed at the time as one of Harris’s strongest potential running mates, given his popularity in a key swing state and his national profile. The vetting process, however, left him uneasy. Shapiro writes that he had “a knot in my stomach” throughout interviews that he felt the process focused less on policy positions and more on his personal outlook.

One flashpoint involved campus protests following October 7th. Harris, Shapiro writes, asked whether he would apologize for remarks he had made condemning protest activity at the University of Pennsylvania that he said crossed into intimidation of Jewish students. “‘No,’ I said flatly,” he writes, adding that he refused to walk back positions he believed were principled.

Shapiro recounts a tense, largely “joyless” meeting with Harris on August 4, 2024, at the vice president’s residence, describing a blunt exchange over expectations for the role of vice president and over Israel-related disagreements. He says he argued for a stronger role, while Harris pointed to the limits of the job and her own difficult experience as vice president under Biden. “A vice president is not a co-president,” she later wrote.

In the days that followed, Shapiro writes, Remus contacted him again to raise practical concerns about the financial burden of the vice presidency, including costs associated with the role that would fall on his family. “Are you trying to convince me not to do this?” he recalls asking. Ultimately, Shapiro decided to withdraw from consideration.

Harris went on to select Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate. In his book, Shapiro says he does not believe prejudice determined Harris’s final decision, but he writes that the questions reflected deeper tensions that surfaced during the vetting.

A spokesperson for Shapiro said the memoir is a personal reflection on faith, family, and public service, with the 2024 campaign comprising only one chapter. Representatives for Harris and Remus did not respond to requests for comment.