Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro delivers his most expansive — and most damning — account yet of the 2024 Democratic vice-presidential search in his forthcoming memoir, portraying a vetting process that crossed from rigorous vetting into something far more unsettling.

In Where We Keep the Light, excerpts of which were obtained by The New York Times, Shapiro recounts being asked late in the vetting process whether he had ever been “a double agent for Israel.” The question, posed by members of then–Vice President Kamala Harris’s team, left him stunned.

“Had I been a double agent for Israel?” Shapiro writes, recalling that when he pushed back, he was told, “Well, we have to ask.”

According to the memoir, the interrogation did not stop there. Shapiro says Dana Remus, who played a role in the vetting, followed up by asking whether he had ever communicated with undercover Israeli operatives. “If they were undercover,” Shapiro responded, “how… would I know?”

While Shapiro writes that he understood Remus was “doing her job,” he says the line of questioning — and its fixation on Israel — raised troubling questions about the mindset of Harris’s inner circle. “It said a lot about some of the people around the VP,” he writes.

Shapiro, the only Jewish candidate seriously considered for the role, says he was repeatedly pressed on his record supporting Israel, his vocal criticism of antisemitism on college campuses following the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack, and his handling of protests during the Israel-Hamas war. He questioned whether similar scrutiny was applied to other contenders. “I wondered whether these questions were being posed to just me,” he writes, “or if everyone… was being grilled about Israel in the same way.”

The governor describes the sessions as outwardly professional but emotionally draining. “I just had a knot in my stomach through all of it,” he writes.

Beyond Israel, Shapiro recounts being challenged on policy differences with Harris, including energy policy, taxes, law enforcement and COVID-era decisions — disagreements he suggests reflected a broader disconnect between Harris’s team and battleground-state politics.

Ultimately, Shapiro withdrew himself from consideration, concluding the process was not unfolding on his family’s terms. Harris went on to select Tim Walz as her running mate, and then on to get demolished by Donald Trump in the general election.

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