Life’s too short to spend reading political campaign memoirs. So, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro can be forgiven for skipping former Vice President Kamala Harris‘ tell-all “107 Days.”
The one-time frontrunner to fill out Harris’ ticket was taken aback by some of the digs in the book, as relayed to him by journalist Tim Alberta. In a profile of Shapiro for The Atlantic, Alberta said the governor “moved between outrage and exasperation” as Alberta shared Harris’ characterizations of Shapiro as overconfident and domineering. Shapiro reportedly called some of Harris’ claims “complete and utter bulls**t.”
“I can tell you that her accounts are just blatant lies,” he said.
After Alberta asked whether Shapiro felt “betrayed” by Harris, Shapiro delivered a verdict on Harris’ memoir. He said it was a way to deflect blame after an embarrassing loss.
“I mean, she’s trying to sell books and cover her a**,” he said, before backtracking. “I shouldn’t say ‘cover her a**.’ I think that’s not appropriate.”
Shapiro is a rare resource as the Democratic Party bumbles toward 2028, a proven swing-state winner who actually seems to want the top job. In the piece, Shapiro says the party has been too unwilling to fight for disaffected, non-college-educated voters who feel the party has left them behind.
“Democrats lost ground in some of these communities by failing to show up and failing to treat people with a level of respect that they deserve,” Shapiro said. “Donald Trump has been a once-in-a-generation political figure who’s managed to connect on a deeper cultural level.”
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Shapiro said the gulf between Trump’s rhetoric at rallies and his billionaires-first policy-making “pisses [him] off.” He pointed toward Medicaid cuts as a great betrayal of MAGA voters in Pennsylvania.
“He showed up in these communities, lied to these good people, and then turned around and completely f**ked them over by taking away their health care to pay for a tax cut for people in the highest income brackets who do not need them,” he said.
