Kamala Harris Caught In Stunning Antisemitism Scandal

Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro says the 2024 Kamala Harris campaign stunned him during vice presidential vetting by asking whether he had ever worked as a “double agent for Israel,” a claim detailed in his forthcoming memoir.

According to Shapiro, the Harris team demanded to know if he was secretly working on Israel’s behalf simply because he is Jewish. When he pushed back on the question, he said the response was dismissive.

“Well, we have to ask.”

Shapiro recounts the exchange in his book, Where We Keep the Light, writing that the question came from then–White House counsel Dana Remus, who was assisting with Harris’ vetting process. Shapiro told Remus he found the line of questioning offensive. He said he was again told, “Well, we have to ask.”

According to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, the Kamala Harris team demanded to know if he was an Israeli double agent simply because he was Jewish. When he confronted them on the question, he said that he effectively shrugged and said, “Well, we have to ask.”…

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) January 19, 2026

The New York Times, which obtained an advance copy of the book, reported that Remus followed up by asking whether Shapiro had ever “communicated with an undercover agent of Israel.”

“If they were undercover, I responded, how the hell would I know?” Shapiro wrote.

Shapiro, who is Jewish, was widely viewed as a serious contender for the vice presidential slot and is considered by some Democrats to be a potential 2028 presidential hopeful.

In the memoir, Shapiro describes the questions as echoing antisemitic tropes that Jewish politicians are more loyal to Israel than to the United States. While he stopped short of directly criticizing Remus, he wrote that she was “just doing her job,” he added that the episode “said a lot about some of the people around the VP.”

“I wondered,” Shapiro wrote, “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 also recounts a separate exchange with Harris herself, saying she asked him directly whether he would “be willing to apologize” for comments he made condemning antisemitic demonstrations on college campuses following the Hamas terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

He refused.

“I believe in free speech, and I’ll defend it with all I’ve got,” Shapiro wrote, according to the Times. “Most of the speech on campus, even that which I disagreed with, was peaceful and constitutionally protected. But some wasn’t peaceful.”

Shapiro, 52, has previously criticized Harris over how she portrayed him in her own campaign memoir, 107 Days, released last year. In that book, Harris depicted the Pennsylvania governor as overly focused on the trappings of the vice presidency, writing that he asked about the number of bedrooms at the Naval Observatory residence and whether the Smithsonian might loan Pennsylvania artwork for display.

Kamala Harris also suggested Shapiro would have wanted to be “in the room for every decision” had she selected him.

Instead, Harris chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. The ticket went on to lose both the Electoral College and the popular vote, marking the first time in 20 years a Democratic nominee failed to win either.

“She wrote that in her book?” Shapiro told The Atlantic when asked about the passages last month. “That’s complete and utter bulls—t. I can tell you that her accounts are just blatant lies.”

“She’s trying to sell books and cover her ass,” Shapiro added, before walking back part of the remark as “not appropriate.”

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