Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said former Vice President Kamala Harris will “have to answer” for why she did not speak out publicly about former President Joe Biden’s ability to serve during his term.
Shapiro, widely seen as a potential 2028 presidential contender, made the remarks in a new SiriusXM show hosted by sports commentator and personality Stephen A. Smith. Smith asked Shapiro about an excerpt from Harris’ soon-to-be-released book on her presidential campaign.
“Was it grace, or was it recklessness?” Harris wrote of the White House’s handling of Biden’s decision to run for re-election, per an excerpt of the book. “In retrospect, I think it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision.”
Speaking with Shapiro, Smith asked the governor how Americans should feel “when we hear something that we suspected but wasn’t acknowledged by politicians who were looking for our support, and then we find out later we were right, and they should have spoken up, and they should have shown more courage.”
Shapiro said he had not read Harris’ book, adding that “she’s going to have to answer to how she was in the room and yet never said anything publicly.”
“I can tell you that I wasn’t in the room, but when I was confronted with engaging with the former president, in looking at it simply from the perspective of, how is he doing in Pennsylvania? Could he win Pennsylvania? Because, I think, Stephen, you understand, if you can’t win Pennsylvania, it’s pretty darn hard to win the national election,” Shapiro continued. “And I was very vocal with him, privately, and extremely vocal with his staff about my concerns about his fitness to be able to run for another term. I was direct with them. I told them my concerns.”
Reached by NBC News, a Harris spokesperson said the former vice president’s words speak for themselves.
In Harris’ book, the former vice president sought to address why she did not make the case for Biden to not run.
“During all those months of growing panic, should I have told Joe to consider not running? Perhaps,” she wrote, according to an excerpt. “But the American people had chosen him before in the same matchup. Maybe he was right to believe that they would do so again.”
“And of all the people in the White House, I was in the worst position to make the case that he should drop out,” she added. “I knew it would come off to him as incredibly self-serving if I advised him not to run. He would see it as naked ambition, perhaps as poisonous disloyalty, even if my only message was: Don’t let the other guy win.”
In the final weeks before the election, Harris told NBC News that she was honest with the American people about Biden’s fitness for office.
“Joe Biden is an — extremely accomplished, experienced and capable in every way that anyone would want if they’re president,” she said. “Absolutely.”
She added that Biden dropped out after having “a bad debate,” not because he was not up to the presidency.
Biden backed Harris after ending his own campaign just weeks after his June 2024 debate against Donald Trump. Before dropping out, a number of prominent Democratic elected officials called on Biden to get out of the race as soon as possible.
Notably, Shapiro was a finalist to serve as Harris’ running mate after Biden abandoned his presidential bid. Harris in August 2024 ultimately selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, even as some surmised that Shapiro’s selection could be beneficial to winning Pennsylvania, the most critical battleground state on the map.
At the time, NBC News reported Harris made her decision after concluding she had the best personal rapport with Walz and was convinced he would be her biggest champion once in office, not letting any personal ambition distract from her goals. After Harris announced Walz, a person close to Shapiro said then that he decided he did not want to be vice president, having “wrestled with” the possibility, because he “loves his job” and felt he had more to accomplish as governor.
Smith noted that California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats have taken a harder line in their rhetoric toward Trump and asked Shapiro whether there is an equivalence between Trump’s rhetoric and that of his opponents.
“I do believe that all leaders need to speak and act with moral clarity, and I believe that starts with the president of the United States,” he said. “I think, sadly, too many people in our politics today appeal to the lowest common denominator, because it gets them some likes on social media, some clicks. I think what we need to do is appeal to our highest common denominator.”
Smith followed up, asking what if that strategy won't win elections, and again pointed to Newsom, another potential 2028 contender.
“Because the Gavin Newsoms of the world have alluded to that — they’ve talked about ... something needing to be done, fighting fire with fire,” Smith said.
“Some people would say that the only way to deal with it is to fight fire with fire, to replicate his behavior to some degree," he added, "just to be able to fend off the onslaught of momentum he appears to be building as his presidency continues.”
Shapiro said he would not be taking such a path, saying his resounding victories in Pennsylvania involved “bringing Republicans and Democrats and independents together and showing them that we can have a positive, constructive way forward.”
“That has been a formula for success — appealing to the highest common denominator, bringing people together,” he added. “I refuse to accept that you’ve got to attack your fellow Americans in order to win an election, and I simply won’t engage in that.”
Manuel Bonder, a Shapiro spokesperson, said in a statement that Shapiro was not criticizing Newsom’s strategy but rather taking issue with the president.”
"Governor Shapiro was very clearly speaking about Donald Trump’s recklessness and dangerous rhetoric that has divided Americans,” Bonder said. “He stands alongside Gov. Newsom and his fellow Democratic governors who are doing the critical work of pushing back on Donald Trump’s chaos and attacks on our democracy.”
