Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro says that during the 2024 presidential election he was asked by Kamala Harris’ vice presidential vetting team whether he was ever “an agent of the Israeli government.” In his forthcoming book, Shapiro, who is Jewish, writes that he was offended by the question, according to a Washington Post report.
Shapiro was interviewed by the team as a possible running mate for Harris, the Democratic nominee for president. Harris ultimately selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
In Where We Keep the Light: Stories From a Life of Service, scheduled for publication next Tuesday by Harper, Shapiro writes that he was also asked, “Have you ever communicated with an undercover agent of Israel?”
Shapiro says that he responded, “If they were undercover, how the hell would I know?”
“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 writes in the book. Shapiro is widely considered a likely presidential candidate in 2028.
CNN reports that Harris’ vetting team asked Walz if he had ever been an agent of China. Walz taught English in China for a year and has visited the country more than two dozen times.
The network quotes an anonymous source as saying, “The crux of vetting is asking uncomfortable and even farfetched questions, especially ones that could be raised by your opponents. ‘Have you ever had an affair?’ ‘Have you ever embezzled state funds?’ ‘Have you ever been an agent for another country?’ The point isn’t that you believe any of it to be true. It’s that the subject needs to be on record with definitive answers.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
