Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro says he was offended by questions about his support for Israel that Kamala Harris’ team asked while vetting him for vice president.
Pennsylvania Gov. Shapiro responds after arson attack at his home
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro called out political violence after police detained a suspect in an arson attack at the governor’s home in Harrisburg.
WASHINGTON — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro says he pulled out of the process to become former Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate before she settled on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after determining he would not be a good fit for the role.
The revelation was included in Shapiro’s memoir, a copy of which USA TODAY obtained. The book that mixes anecdotes about politics and his Jewish faith, “Where We Keep the Light: Stories From a Life of Service,” will be released on Jan. 27.
In it, Shapiro, who’s up for reelection this fall, offers new details about his conversations with Harris, who he briefly considered challenging for the nomination, as well as former President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump.
Shapiro, a top surrogate for Biden before he dropped out, also hints at his own future political plans.
The prospective 2028 Democratic presidential candidate presents himself as willing to go “against the grain” and “say the quiet part out loud,” even when those positions may be unpopular. Shapiro says he’s always been willing to make a choice and execute it.
He has been willing to pay the political price, “if there was one,” Shapiro, 52, adds, “though truthfully, what usually happened was that I was able to lead people to where I was or at least lead them more in my direction.”
Collapse of Biden’s campaign
Shapiro’s book offers a contrast, and a rebuttal, at points to Harris’ own campaign memoir, “107 Days,” which published in 2025. Harris wrote about the “recklessness” of top Biden aides, herself included, who wouldn’t tell the president he should not seek reelection.
Biden administration officials were gossiping about him behind his back months before he bowed out of the race, Shapiro said.
At a White House state dinner that Shapiro attended in April 2024, he said Biden aides inquired about the situation on the ground in Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state. Shapiro says he gave them his honest assessment: Biden was down and falling.
Biden’s horrendous June debate only drove home the point. Shapiro said that by then he “was starting to feel real doubt about how Biden would win” but he did not think that any politician would be “able to leapfrog” over the sitting vice president to accept the party’s nomination.
When the president and first lady visited Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the state capital, Shapiro joined them for coffee. Biden asked how he was doing in Pennsylvania. Shapiro says he told Biden there “were a lot of people who thought it was best for him to get out of the race” and shared internal polling to make his point. Biden rejected it.
The conversation was respectful and cordial, he said. Biden is a “good man” and “an honorable person.”
Not the ‘right time’ for Shapiro
When Biden did finally drop out, Shapiro says he asked himself, “Well, now what? Maybe there would be a process the party would engage in to replace him? Did I want to be part of that?”
His wife, Lori, did not favor his getting in the race.
“I don’t think we are ready to do this,” she said. “It’s not the right time for our family. And it’s not on our terms.”
Shapiro says that although he still considered it, he ultimately agreed with his wife. Not long after, Harris called him and asked for his support.
As the moderate governor of a large swing state, Shapiro’s name immediately rose to the top of the list of Harris’ possible running mates. Her campaign manager called on her behalf to see if he was interested in being vetted.
Lori had misgivings, as did he. “I knew that despite the honor of it, it just didn’t feel right for some reason,” Shapiro writes.
Harris’ lawyers focused on policy areas where they differed. He says that Harris’ team pressed him on his support for law enforcement. He said he told them his bipartisan appeal was a huge reason he’d been elected.
“They were questioning my ideology, my approach, my world view,” he said. “Again, it was their right to do so, but the manner in which they did suggested to me that they really didn’t understand where the people who would decide this presidential election really were.”
Harris team asked if Shapiro was ‘an agent of Israel‘
In one of their later sessions, he says, Harris’ team zeroed in on Israel. They took issue with his aggressive response to pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Pennsylvania and worried about how his stances might play in Michigan, a swing state that has a large Arab-American population.
“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,” he said.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who’s Jewish, was also considered. He has said little about what took place when he was vetted. Shapiro volunteered at an Israeli army base in high school and worked at the Israeli embassy in Washington early in his career.
Shapiro said their questions added to his growing sense that he wasn’t the right fit for the ticket. Members of team suggested he pull out of the process before he met with Harris. His wife encouraged him to talk to the vice president, he said, telling him he’d regret it if he didn’t.
On his way to meet with Harris in Washington, he says her team asked him, if he’d ever “been an agent of the Israeli government” or communicated with an undercover agent of Israel.
Shapiro was flabbergasted and offended. “If they were undercover, I responded, how the hell would I know?”
While he waited for Harris at the Naval Observatory, Shapiro says he engaged in small talk with a member of the staff. Harris wrote in her book that he was measuring the drapes and counting bedrooms. Shapiro says his comments were misrepresented. He was trying to determine whether his children would be comfortable calling the house their home.
When he finally spoke to Harris, she told him that if he were chosen, she’d expect his total focus. Shapiro said he told her she’d have his full commitment but he still had a state to run. Harris asked if he’d be willing to apologize for previous statements he’d made about the protesters. He told her he would not.
She shared with him then that her vice presidency had been tough, laying out some of the complaints about Biden’s senior staff and their insular decision-making process that she’d go on to detail in her book. “I was surprised by how much she seemed to dislike the role,” he said.
Shapiro laid out his own expectations for the job. He wanted to be a partner to Harris, and to know she’d take his input seriously.
“She was crystal clear that that was not what she was looking for. I would primarily work with her staff. She couldn’t say to me that I would have that kind of access to her.”
To Harris’ credit, he writes, she was honest. After the meeting they had him wait at former Attorney General Eric Holder’s apartment in Washington. Eventually, one of the vice president’s lawyers, Dana Remus, showed up and told Shapiro she could tell he didn’t want the job. Moving to Washington would be hard for him and the role would be a financial strain. His wife would have get a new wardrobe and pay for professional hair and makeup. The couple would also have to foot the bill for food and entertainment.
“I was a little slack-jawed. The comments were unkind to me. They were nasty to Lori,” he said.
Shapiro says that after returning home and weighing his options with his wife he decided he didn’t want the job. He called Remus and told her he was withdrawing. He wanted to personally tell Harris.
“She then told me that the VP would not handle bad news well and that I shouldn’t push. At that point, I left it to the VP’s team to let her know about what I had decided.”
Harris called two days later to say she’d officially chosen Walz. “She could not have been nicer,” Shapiro writes.
Shapiro says he wasn’t sure if Remus had told Harris that he withdrew and he did not ask.
Harris would write later in her own memoir that Shapiro was “poised, polished and personable,” but he seemed reluctant not to be in command.
Sources familiar with the process told USA TODAY at the time that Shapiro tried to negotiate a policy portfolio for himself. It was evident from his vetting interview that it would be a bad match, they said. His perceived ambitions and his strong connection to his Jewish identity and how it informed his views on Israel were also prominent issues in the competition to become Harris’ running mate
The Obama factor
Shapiro’s faith was a draw for another prominent Democrat who ran for president almost two decades earlier.
He was one of Barack Obama’s earliest Pennsylvania endorsers in the 2008 presidential primary, in which the former Illinois lawmaker pulled off an upset against Hillary Clinton.
Shapiro came to Obama’s defense during the primary campaign after Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, made anti-Israel and antisemitic comments. Shapiro appeared at synagogues and community events on Obama’s behalf and convened a listening session for him with prominent Jewish leaders.
“Privately, I was fielding a bunch of calls from donors who were nervous about his support of Israel, but I felt comfortable defending his beliefs. I thought the attacks were unfair. I believed in his message, and I thought that he would make a better President,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro’s rhetorical style has been compared to Obama’s, and the former president has admitted in the past he’s a fan.
Obama campaigned for Shapiro when he ran for governor in 2022, appearing at a rally alongside him, Biden and future Sen. John Fetterman shortly before the election.
Shapiro’s speech came earlier than Obama’s at the event, which he admits was an intimidating position to be in. After the former president spoke, Shapiro said, he came backstage and “gave me a little bro hug.”
“’Yo man,’ he said into my ear,“ Shapiro writes, of Obama. “‘I was listening to your speech. It was damn good. There’s something to that.’
“It’s a moment I still carry with me,” Shapiro continues. “I keep that photo of our embrace in my office, too.”
Living ‘in a bubble’
Shapiro and his family were sleeping upstairs when a Molotov cocktail came through the window of the governor’s residence during the Passover holiday in 2025. For the first time, he realized people were trying to kill him.
Trump took a week to call after the arson. When Trump finally called from his personal cellphone, Shapiro did not answer because he didn’t recognize the number. Trump left him a voicemail telling him to call anytime. “Just a terrible situation,” Trump said.
Shapiro called him back. Trump answered right away. He says he raised some issues that were important to his state during the call, including steelworker jobs in Pittsburgh.
He says Trump brought up the 2028 presidential race and the Democratic Party’s bench. “He said he liked the way I talked to people and approached problems.”
He says Trump, who faced his own near assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024, also told him he “shouldn’t want to be President, given how dangerous it had become to hold the office now.”
