When former Vice President Kamala Harris passed over Josh Shapiro—the popular governor of the must-win state of Pennsylvania—in favor of perpetually befuddled (and subsequently scandal-plagued) Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to join her presidential ticket, many assumed there was bad blood between the two. And that certainly appears to be the case: In his new book, Shapiro side-eyes the Harris campaign for seeking to relegate him to the role of extreme junior partner, insisting that he walk back certain policy statements, and asking whether he was an Israeli double agent.
This last issue generated significant coverage on social media this week. The mainstream media treated it as big news. Some Democrats expressed frustration with Team Harris and suggested that the question was inappropriate. In grilling Shapiro—who is notably Jewish, and who was the victim of an arson attack during Passover—on his views regarding Israel, Harris' people were implicitly playing into the noxious stereotype that Jews are more loyal to the state of Israel than to the United States. Shapiro himself seemed to feel this way about the question: He writes in the book that he was offended by the line of inquiry, and told the Harris campaign as much.
