Pennsylvania governor Shapiro was asked if he was 'Israeli agent’ by Kamala Harris' vetting team

In his forthcoming book, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro claims that the campaign team of former Vice President Kamala Harris questioned him regarding his ties to Israel during the process of vetting him as a potential running mate. 

In the memoir "Where We Keep the Light," Shapiro recounts how Dana Remus, a White House counsel under President Joe Biden who later became a senior member of Harris’s vice-presidential vetting team, asked him, “Have you ever been an agent of the Israeli government?”

Shapiro also writes about his own shock at being asked the question. 

“Was she kidding?” He wrote. “I told her how offensive the question was.” 

“Well, we have to ask,” Remus responded, according to Shapiro. “We just wanted to check.” 

However, Shapiro writes, the line of questioning continued. 

“Have you ever communicated with an undercover agent of Israel?” 

Noting that he was getting visibly perturbed, Shapiro says he responded with a question of his own. 

“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 the people around the VP.” 

The interaction was revealed by The New York Times, which received an advance copy of Shapiro’s memoir. 

Furthermore, Shapiro notes that he was asked if he would be willing to apologize for statements he made regarding anti-Israel college campus protests, in which he openly called out the promotion of hate. 

“Our colleges, in many cases, are failing young people,” he said in an interview with The New York Times in 2024. “Failing to teach information that is necessary to form thoughtful perspectives. They are willing to let certain forms of hate pass by and condemn others more strongly.” 

However, as the vetting process continued, one that would ultimately see Harris pick Minnesota Governor Tim Walz instead of Shapiro, he began to wonder if other candidates were receiving the same level of scrutiny. 

“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. 

“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.”

Shapiro notes that he eventually felt there were too many differences between him and Harris and removed himself from the selection pool. 

The revelations about the questioning drew sharp criticism from Deborah Lipstadt, antisemitism envoy under the Biden administration, and her former deputy Aaron Keyak.

Lipstadt wrote on X that the account of the vetting process "disturbed" her, noting these were the type of questions that made a Special Envoy for antisemitism necessary in the first place.

"These questions were classic antisemitism,” Lipstadt wrote.

In a separate statement, Keyak questioned "why it was Governor Shapiro who was targeted by the staff of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, in particular. The truth is, we almost certainly know why.”

“Unfortunately, this is not the first time the US government or a presidential campaign has applied a double standard to American Jews during the vetting process for a wide range of officials. I have heard from too many being asked similar questions over many years and I can speak from personal experience,” he added.

The Pennsylvania governor, who has been outspoken about his Jewish faith and is considered a potential presidential candidate in the 2028 elections, writes in the memoir about his personal and political life, including reflections on faith and an account of the arson attack on the governor’s residence during Passover last year. 

Shapiro's book will be released on Jan. 27 in the U.S.