As Part of the VP Candidate Vetting Process, Kamala Harris's Staff Asked Josh Shapiro If He Was a Double Agent for Israel

People whose only loyalty is to a resurrected Soviet Union sure seem overly bothered by "dual loyalty" paranoia.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro was already irritated by what he describes as "unnecessarily contentious" questions from the team vetting him to be Kamala Harris's running mate when a senior aide made one final inquiry: "Have you ever been an agent of the Israeli government?"

The question came from President Biden's former White House counsel Dana Remus, who was a key member of Harris's vice-presidential search team.

Shapiro, one of the most well-known Jewish elected officials in the country--and one of at least three Jewish politicians considering a run for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination--says he took umbrage at the question. "Had I been a double agent for Israel? Was she kidding? I told her how offensive the question was," Shapiro writes in his forthcoming book, Where We Keep the Light, a copy of which The Atlantic obtained ahead of its release on January 27.

The exchange became even more tense, he writes, when Remus asked whether Shapiro had ever spoken with an undercover Israeli agent. The questions left the governor feeling uneasy about the prospect of being Harris's No. 2, a role that ultimately went to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. After Harris and Walz lost to Donald Trump, many Democrats were critical of her decision to bypass Shapiro, the popular governor of the nation's largest swing state. In his book, Shapiro says that the decision may not have been fully hers; he says he had "a knot in my stomach" throughout a vetting process that was more combative than he had expected. Shapiro wrote that he decided to take his name out of the running after a one-on-one meeting with Harris that featured more clashes, including about Israel.

The Biden/Harris "antisemitism envoy" objected to the question.

Should we also ask Muslims if they are loyal to "the Caliphate"? Actually, question retracted. We certainly should.

Weird how we didn't hear about it before the election.

posted by Ace at 01:29 PM

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