Did Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro intentionally “tank” his vetting interview for the Vice Presidential slot on the 2024 Democratic ticket alongside Kamala Harris?

Was it arrogance? Was it “honesty, not self-sabotage’?

Or was it a question of whether the governor of the most important swing state in the country could be “a loyal Number two”?

New details have arisen from the New York Times best-selling book, Fight. Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House, co-authored by Jonathan Allen, senior national politics reporter for NBC News, and Amie Parnes, senior political correspondent with The Hill.

The authors had previously written two other books about presidential campaigns – Shattered: Inside Hillary’s Clinton’s Doomed Campaign (2017) and Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency (2021). It was not their intention to do another campaign book until June 27, 2024, the night of the Biden-Trump debate.

“Like many other Americans, we were sort of shocked by it and thought something’s going to happen here that’s going to change things,” said Allen. “Our publicist reached out to us and we decided we could not pass this one up.”

And thus the genesis of book No. 3.

The Departure of Joe Biden

Fight looks behind the scenes at the days leading up to President Joe Biden’s departure from the presidential race; President Donald Trump surviving a would-be assassin’s bullet; and a vice president suddenly thrust into the void to carry the hopes and dreams of Democrats everywhere in a 107-day campaign to lead the free world.

Allen and Parnes wrote that even in 2020, it was apparent that Biden had “lost his fastball.”

“We’re not doctors,” said Allen, “but you could tell that there was some decline in Biden and his sharpness. You could see signs of slippage. I think there was a real, even then, sort of willingness to self-delude among certainly the top Democrats. And that feeds into this election cycle when we all see that very sharp and, I think, alarming decline on the debate stage.”

Despite the desire of former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to have an open Convention to select Biden’s replacement, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) made it clear that the first Black female vice president would not be “skipped over for the possible nomination for president.” Clyburn, the de facto dean of the Congressional Black Caucus, helped Biden become the 2020 nominee by endorsing him in South Carolina when the VP appeared on the verge of dropping out of the race.

The Veepstakes

After Harris ascended to the top of the ticket with Biden’s endorsement, her first big decision was to select a running mate. Three names remained on the short list, according to the book, after three rounds of initial vetting – Shapiro, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

“I think that Shapiro and Walz were probably always a little more likely than Kelly,” said Allen. He mentioned during an interview with PoliticsPA that opposition research and political dirty tricks worked against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Witmer.

“We talked to sources who said that there were warnings about Shapiro, in particular, being very ambitious and maybe not being able to play second fiddle to Harris if he was on the ticket,” he continued.

Allen and Parnes write that Trump advisers worried that Shapiro would be the choice, as they were not certain that the popular governor would not be able to deliver his home state – the most important one on the electoral chess board.

Allen thought that Republicans saw danger in Shapiro’s selection.

“Number one, a candidate who was popular with some of the Republicans in his home state. And if that’s the case in Pennsylvania, it might also be the case in some of the other swing cities in Michigan. Somebody’s who is able to go across the aisle in one state may be able to do that in others.

“I also think they saw a real weakness for the Democratic Party and its split over Israel and Palestine. Shapiro is pretty firmly on one side of that, that the Republicans see. Not only on that right side of it,” he continued, “but also one that makes a lot more political sense in a general election.”

But the 51-year-old former Attorney General for the Commonwealth came at his vetting interview with a different tack.

“Most of the people that come in for something like that are sort of promising what they’re going to do to support the ticket,” said Allen. “How loyal thay could be. Shapiro was like, ‘If you were going to pick me and I was going to accept it, here are the things I think should be part of my portfolio.’ He looked at it as more of a negotiation than an application for a job. That rubbed some people in the room the wrong way.”

Was this by design?

“If you’re Shapiro and you’re up-and-coming, you cannot say no to being interviewed for the vice presidential job,” said Allen. “But he also might not want to be picked, because there’s a chance that the ticket loses and he kind of gets thrown out with the bath water for a future run.

“I want to stop sort of saying he performed an act of self-sabotage, because I can’t prove what was in his heart, his mind at the time. But certainly people that were there at least considered the question of whether he was kind of intentionally throwing it to make sure that he didn’t end up on the ticket.”

Harris, of course, was herself a presidential candidate in 2020 and Biden’s team had similar concerns about her ability to be loyal and not outshine him on the campaign trail or in the White House.

The loyalty question certainly factored into the final decision to select Walz.

“The vetting committee was warned by others that Shapiro had a reputation for, perhaps, slipping a knife here or there,” recounted Allen.

Allies of Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), a long-time political rival of Shapiro, reportedly warned Harris’ team about Shapiro’s personal ambitions.

Also, according to a passage in the book, a Walz ally, while promoting the candidate, told the vetting team that Shapiro “could not be trusted to be loyal to Harris.”

The same ally shared a quote from former U.S. Rep. Joe Hoeffel, who said that Shapiro, his chief of staff in Washington from 1999-2003, was not someone you should turn your back on.

“Loyalty is not his strong suit,” he told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2017.

“Hoeffel obviously had attempted to make a comeback in politics after his congressional career and certainly found out that Shapiro was more ambitious than loyal,” said Allen.

Harris met with her finalists at her residence at the Navy Observatory on August 4. In the end, Walz put Harris at ease, as one campaign adviser said to Allen and Parnes, “She wasn’t going to have to wake up worried if he was knifing her.”

PoliticsPA reached out to the communications staff in the Governor’s office but received no response.

Shapiro’s Future as a Presidential Candidate

Allen said that he feels that Shapiro is well-positioned for a presidential run in 2028.

“I don’t think he hurt himself in the vetting process, other than the inside chatter,” Allen shared. “The inside chatter is important in terms of picking up endorsements and things like that within the party. But it’s not nearly as important as having a vision for the future. I think he’s in a pretty good spot.”

Allen also mentioned that Shapiro, ever the shrewd politician, could take lessons away from 2024 to any future run.

“One of the important parts is that you can learn from both victory and defeat,” said the former White House Bureau chief for Politico. “The Democrats, they failed to meet the moment in terms of this being a change election. They weren’t offering a different vision.

“Democrats need to read the moment,” he continued. “Voters have lost trust, particularly Democratic voters, have lost a lot of faith in the Democratic Party. They haven’t had a clear vision for what a modern America looks like and how that helps voters. A lot of the Democratic agenda in the Trump era, and even before, has been defending existing structure and institutions and programs – Social Security, Medicare, whatever.

“I’m not here to make a judgment about whether or not they should protect those programs, but what they haven’t done is said, here’s how we are going to transform things going forward, whether it’s those programs or something different, as the Democratic Party. I think that’s something they’re going to have to learn.”