OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
11:42 AM – Monday, January 19, 2026
In his new memoir, “Where We Keep the Light,” Pennsylvania Democrat Governor Josh Shapiro provides a remarkably detailed, and often critical, account of his time as a finalist for Kamala Harris’ 2024 vice presidential nominee ticket.
In it, Shapiro (D-Pa.) provides his most detailed account of being vetted as a potential running mate for then-Vice President Harris during the 2024 presidential campaign.
While Shapiro was widely seen as the frontrunner for the slot, the book reveals a bizarre vetting process he describes as “offensive” and “unsettling,” particularly regarding his Jewish identity and views on Israel.
As a self-described Zionist who openly embraces his Jewish heritage, Shapiro has addressed related issues in recent years, including condemning the antisemitic rhetoric at some college campus protests after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the subsequent Gaza war.
Historically, Shapiro has criticized some of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government actions, but he has also maintained strong support for Israel’s security and the safety of the Jewish people.
In the memoir, Shapiro details a pivotal moment during the vetting when Dana Remus, a lead official in Harris’ search at the time, asked him bluntly if he had ever been an “agent of the Israeli government.”
Responding with incredulity, Shapiro questioned if he was being accused of being a “double agent,” a query he considered a slight against his loyalty to the United States.
When Remus followed up by asking if he had ever met with an “undercover” Israeli agent, Shapiro quips that he replied: “If they were undercover, how the hell would I know?”
The friction then extended into a one-on-one interview with Harris herself.
Shapiro further alleges that Harris pressed him to apologize for his condemnation of pro-Palestine encampments at the University of Pennsylvania — a request he refused.
“I believe in free speech, and I’ll defend it with all I’ve got,” he wrote. “Most of the speech on campus, even that which I disagreed with, was peaceful and constitutionally protected. [However] some wasn’t peaceful,” he added.
Shapiro added in his memoir that Harris seemed to “loathe” the vice presidency, describing a rigid hierarchy where he was told he would take direction from her chief of staff and wouldn’t even have a private bathroom.
In addition, following the release of Harris’s own memoir, “107 Days,” in which she suggested Shapiro was too “overly confident” and sought a “co-presidency,” Shapiro told The Atlantic that her claims were “complete and utter bull****” and “blatant lies.”
Harris had also shared a specific anecdote alleging that before they even met, Shapiro had already contacted the manager of the vice president’s residence to ask about the number of bedrooms and whether the Smithsonian would loan him art for the walls.
“He mused that he would want to be in the room for each and every decision… I told him bluntly that was an unrealistic expectation. A vice president is not a co-president,” Harris claimed.
In response, he accused Harris of fabricating the stories to “sell books and cover her a**,” before suggesting it was simply an attempt to “sell books.”
While the book reflects on the 2025 firebombing of his residence as a moment of personal “darkness,” the political fallout from his vetting disclosures has highlighted a deep fracture within the Democrat Party.
As of Monday, the fallout from these excerpts has prompted a wave of criticism from Jewish advocacy groups. Aaron Keyak, a former Biden-Harris antisemitism envoy, called the inquiry “anti-American” and “discriminatory,” noting that it applied a double standard to a Jewish public servant that was not applied to other contenders like Tim Walz (D-Minn.) or Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.).
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