In his new memoir, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro writes in deeply personal terms about the 2025 arson attack on his home, a conversation he had with President Donald Trump after the incident and the intense vetting he underwent when Vice President Kamala Harris was considering him as her running mate.
Shapiro, widely considered a top contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential race, also talked in detail about his family, his Jewish faith and his time leading Pennsylvania in “Where We Keep the Light: Stories from a Life of Service,” set to release Jan. 27.
Here are highlights from the book, obtained by The Washington Post:
Shapiro and Harris did not see eye to eye on the role of VP
Shapiro and Harris met for about an hour when he was being vetted as her potential running mate, the governor wrote, and it was clear the two had different visions for the role of vice president.
Shapiro wrote extensively about the doubts he had from the moment the process began. But, given the potential opportunity, the ambitious pol said he moved ahead. He made small talk with Harris’s team ahead of their meeting, which he later learned would be “analyzed, misrepresented and picked apart,” he wrote. It appeared to be a reference to Harris’s account of the meeting in her own book, where she said Shapiro asked her residence manager how many bedrooms were in the house and wondered aloud about potential artwork he might display.
The two appeared to have disagreements from the start of the meeting, Shapiro wrote. Shapiro wanted someone from the governor’s office to remain on his staff so he could continue doing his job while on the campaign trail. Harris told him she needed his complete focus; Shapiro reassured her it wouldn’t be an issue to juggle both roles.
Harris then asked if Shapiro would be willing to apologize for statements he made about pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Pennsylvania, who Shapiro at one point appeared to compare to the Ku Klux Klan. Shapiro flatly told her no, explaining that he supported free speech but that he believed many of the demonstrations were not peaceful and were designed to incite violence.
But the biggest clash between the two came over how they each saw the role of vice president. Shapiro said he was struck by how much Harris appeared to dislike the role.
Shapiro told Harris he wanted to be able to state his case on any issue and that if she disagreed with him, “I’d run right through a brick wall to support her decision and make sure it succeeded. As long as I was heard.”
He said Harris was “crystal clear” that was not the type of relationship she was looking for and that Shapiro would primarily work with her staff. He later recounted being asked to wait around for hours after the meeting, further convincing him he did not want the role.
“It could have gone differently, had I left that meeting thinking that she would want a partner and someone to bounce things off of before she ultimately made her decision,” Shapiro wrote. “There was a world in which it could have worked, but that was not this world.”
Harris’ office did not respond to a request for comment.
Shapiro was asked if he was ever an agent for Israel
As he was preparing to meet Harris for the face-to-face meeting in Washington, he wrote, a member of Harris’s team called him with a question: “Have you ever been an agent of the Israeli government?” Shapiro said he found the question highly offensive.
“Well, we have to ask,” the questioner responded, according to Shapiro. He said she then added: “Have you ever communicated with an undercover agent of Israel?”
“If they were undercover, I responded, how the hell would I know?” Shapiro wrote.
Shapiro said he underwent extensive questioning about his views on Israel, including his handling of campus protests. The panel asked him why he had taken such a hard line on campus protests, particularly at the University of Pennsylvania. He told them the safety of students had been threatened and he would take the same position to protect any other student group.
“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.
“What they did say was that they felt as though my positions were different from Kamala’s views on the matter,” he added. “I agreed that they were.”
Shapiro recalls arson attack
Shapiro opened the book recalling the night in April 2025 that a man broke into the governor’s residence and firebombed the dining room where, hours earlier, their family had gathered for the first night of Passover. Shapiro shared many of the details of the incident in an exclusive interview with The Post last year, but the book offers a deeper reflection.
After learning the fire was intentional, Shapiro wondered if the man attacked him and his family because they were Jewish, he wrote. In the hours after the attack, before it was known that the arsonist, Cody Balmer, told police that he’d wanted to kill Shapiro and referenced treatment of Palestinians as a motive, Shapiro’s youngest son asked if someone tried to kill them because they were Jewish. Shapiro told his son he didn’t know.
Any bubble of security he’d felt before the attack had burst and he realized that not only did someone want to kill him, they were willing to kill his family, his wife and his children, too, he wrote.
“This destruction and fear was overshadowed by the light from the love, support and rallying that came in the wake of it,” he wrote, a theme that echoes throughout the book.
Trump told Shapiro he ‘shouldn’t want to be president’
Trump does not figure prominently in Shapiro’s book, but the governor did recall a phone conversation he had with the president after the arson attack. It took about a week for Trump to call, he wrote, noting earlier that former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama called right away. Trump left a voicemail, in which he said he wanted to make sure the Shapiros were “being treated perfectly” and that everything with the investigation “was perfect.” He gave him his personal cell number and said to call any time.
Shapiro called back. The president answered immediately. When he asked how Trump was doing, it “launched him into a monologue” about how great the economy was, how low gas prices were and how Trump “was doing so well.”
The president also wanted to talk politics and ticked through a list of potential Democratic presidential contenders and their chances in the 2028 election, though Shapiro did not say who Trump named. Trump complimented Shapiro on how “he talked to people and approached problems.” But, he also told Shapiro that he “shouldn’t want to be president given how dangerous it had become to hold the office now.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Shapiro warned Biden he was in trouble in Pennsylvania
Shapiro said he was struck by how many people within the Biden administration were whispering about whether the president should stay in the presidential race when he and his wife were at the White House for the Japanese state dinner in April 2024. Biden’s staff asked him how bad it was in Pennsylvania, considered the campaign’s most crucial battleground state, he wrote.
“I saw bad poll after bad poll but it didn’t take a poll to confirm what I felt on the ground, the President was down and falling,” Shapiro wrote. “I was honest with his team about that. I didn’t know their internal process or which way their deliberations were leaning. But I knew he was in real trouble in Pennsylvania.”
Shapiro recounted President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden visiting Pennsylvania in July 2024, shortly after the president’s disastrous debate performance. He met the Bidens for coffee, where the three of them had a few minutes to speak privately, he wrote. Biden asked Shapiro how he was faring in Pennsylvania.
“I was honest with him. I told him that there were a lot of people who thought it was best for him to get out of the race,” Shapiro wrote. “I shared some of our internal polling with him and my feel from being out in the community, and he told us his team had different numbers that showed the race much closer. He said he still had confidence that it would be OK.”
Shapiro called his wife after the meeting and told her that Biden seemed to be in the campaign “for the long haul.” Days later, Biden dropped out.
Biden’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
He talks extensively about his Jewish faith
Shapiro’s Jewish faith is a dominant theme throughout the book. While he has always talked openly about his religion, he said he felt a responsibility to live his Judaism “out loud” since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
“We know that many feel like it’s a trying time to live Jewishly,” Shapiro wrote.
Yet aside from the conversations with Harris’s team about his support for Israel and position on campus protests, Shapiro did not discuss in the book the ensuing war in Gaza, which has deeply divided the Democratic Party. Biden provided nearly unconditional support for Israel’s onslaught, while a growing number of Democrats have called for reevaluating the U.S. relationship with Israel, vowing not to accept money from AIPAC and cutting off offensive weapons.
Shapiro does share his personal connections to Israel, as well as the role his faith plays in his day-to-day life. Shapiro lived in Israel for the first semester of his junior year in high school, he wrote, with his now-wife Lori. He proposed to her in Israel when they returned years later.
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