Were efforts to snuff out alleged “double spies” the reason former Vice President Kamala Harris’ doomed 2024 presidential campaign fell flat on its face?
According to accounts from Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro — once considered to be the frontrunner as Harris’ running mate — Harris’ campaign grilled him about whether he was secretly working as an Israeli government insider.
A shocking excerpt from Shapiro’s new memoir, “Where We Keep the Light,” says Harris’ campaign asked Shapiro if he had ever worked with the Israeli government during his vetting process to be her 2024 running mate.
Josh Shapiro on his VP vetting: “'Had I been a double agent for Israel? Was she kidding? I told her how offensive the question was…"
More here, via @TheAtlantic: https://t.co/ptGGtMzv5v— Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) January 19, 2026
Shapiro wrote that attorney Dana Remus, a senior member of Harris’ vice presidential vetting team, asked if he had been “a double agent for Israel” and if he had “ever communicated with an undercover agent of Israel,” according to The New York Times.
“If they were undercover, I responded, how the hell would I know?” the governor wrote in his new book.
According to Shapiro’s accounts, he told the Harris team that the question was offensive.
Shapiro recounted that he was told, “Well, we have to ask,” according to his book.
This line of questioning “said a lot about some of the people around the VP [Harris],” Shapiro wrote.
Shapiro added that the Harris team’s questions regarding Israel left him “wondering 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,” the Jerusalem Post reported.
Shapiro went on to tell of Harris directly grilling him about his past comments regarding Israel.
Shapiro claimed that Harris herself asked him whether he “would be willing to apologize for the statements I had made,” concerning comments he made on pro-Palestinian protests taking place at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Most of the speech on campus, even that which I disagreed with, was peaceful and constitutionally protected,” Shapiro wrote.
“But some wasn’t peaceful.”
At the time, many believed Shapiro — who is Jewish — to be the leading candidate to become Harris’ running mate before she ultimately chose Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Pro-Palestinian activist groups strongly objected to Shapiro as Harris’ potential vice presidential pick due to his support for Israel and criticism of protests following the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attacks by Hamas.
According to the New York Times report, Shapiro wrote that Pennsylvania “stands with Israel against Iran” in an April 2024 post to X following Iranian strikes against Israel — dooming him within the increasing antisemitic Democratic Party.
Jewish officials who served in President Joe Biden and Harris’ administration slammed the alleged vetting question, saying that it ties into antisemitic tropes that American Jews have dual loyalties between the United States and Israel.