Overview
- Published excerpts identify former White House counsel Dana Remus as the senior vetter who asked whether Josh Shapiro had ever been an agent of the Israeli government and whether he had communicated with an undercover Israeli operative.
- Shapiro writes that he found the questions offensive and was told, “Well, we have to ask,” while also noting he viewed the sessions as professional yet unsettling.
- He says the team pressed him on Israel-related matters, including whether he would apologize for his criticism of pro-Palestinian campus protests at the University of Pennsylvania, which he declined to do.
- Shapiro recounts withdrawing from consideration after a tense one-on-one with Kamala Harris, and Harris ultimately selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate.
- Jewish figures such as Deborah Lipstadt and Abraham Foxman criticized the reported questioning as invoking dual-loyalty tropes, and coverage to date notes no substantive public rebuttal from Harris’s team or Remus.