Shapiro jabs Harris amid revelations from her new book

Related video: New Harris book criticizes Biden

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) took a jab at former Vice President Kamala Harris after she revealed in her upcoming memoir “107 Days” her reason for not choosing Shapiro in the 2024 veepstakes.

In her memoir, Harris candidly discussed her vice presidential search and the field of candidates, including Shapiro.

She wrote that Shapiro seemed more interested in the role of vice president than in helping her win against President Trump. He even questioned an aide about what art pieces he could use to decorate the vice president’s residence, Harris recalled.

Shapiro joined the exchange of fire in an appearance on sports commentator Stephen A. Smith’s new SiriusXM show, after Smith asked him what he thought about Harris’s decision to not speak up and “show courage” in confronting former President Biden about dropping his presidential run.

“I mean, look, I haven’t read the former vice president’s book,” Shapiro said. But he added that she was going to “have to answer how she was in the room and yet never said anything publicly.”

Biden’s decision to run in the 2024 presidential race was met with controversy on both sides of the aisle, with critics expressing worry over his age and mental fitness.

In his interview with Smith, Shapiro revealed he had been “very vocal” with Biden and his staff about his concerns over Biden’s “fitness to be able to run for another term.”

“I was direct with them,” Shapiro said. “I told them my concerns.”

Biden dropped out of the race in July 2024 after a poor performance in the first presidential debate. Harris announced her bid for the presidency shortly after.

Harris’s campaign lasted 107 days, which she has called “the shortest presidential campaign in modern history.” Her memoir describes the campaign and her reasons for ultimately choosing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as vice president on her ticket.

She wrote that former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had been her “first choice” for running mate but that their ticket would have been “too risky.” 

“We were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man,” she wrote. “Part of me wanted to say, ‘Screw it, let’s just do it.’ But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk.”

In another excerpt of her memoir published in The Atlantic, Harris wrote that she had been in the “worst position to make the case that he [Biden] should drop out.”

“He would see it as naked ambition, perhaps as poisonous disloyalty, even if my only message was: Don’t let the other guy win,” she wrote. 

She wrote she wondered whether leaving the decision to run for president up to Biden had been “grace or recklessness.” But “in retrospect,” she wrote, it had been “recklessness.”

“107 Days” will be released next week. Harris announced last month that she would go on a book tour to 15 cities, including in the United Kingdom and Canada.