‘But He Is Jewish’: CNN’s Jake Tapper and Audie Cornish Debate Why Josh Shapiro Was Passed Over

CNN’s Jake Tapper and Audie Cornish debated why Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro was passed over in Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s veepstakes on Tuesday, with Tapper suggesting that the decision might be related to his Jewish identity.

The conversation began with Abby Phillip musing “And I think ultimately, Shapiro, I think fit is important. But you know, I also think that when you look at the principle of do no harm, maybe they did say in a state like Minnesota, do we want to, those 100,000 uncommitted voters who came out about the Gaza war, do we want to antagonize those voters? Those are all part of the questions as well.”

Here’s how the conversation unfolded from there:

CORNISH: Tim Walz also spoke conciliatorily towards those people. He said, look, that uncommitted vote is significant and those people should be heard. So having that kind of response, I think, is probably more of an open door to the parts of the party that have been very frustrated with the Democrats.

TAPPER: So but just to, just to one point on the on the on the Gaza war, Shapiro has the same position on Israel that Governor Walz, that Senator Kelly has. He’s actually been more critical of [Benjamin] Netanyahu than the other two. But he is Jewish… and-

CORNISH: He’s also the face of the crackdown on the protests, right? He spoke very vehemently about those campus protests as being anti-Semitic.

TAPPER: Not all of them, the ones that were anti-Semitic, he criticized as being anti-Semitic.

CORNISH: Of course, but he was out front on the issue. So I’m wondering if that’s the kind of thing that, again, for the activist wing of the party, they thought was a slap in the face.

“There are a lot of similarities in their actual positions, Tim Walz and Josh Shapiro, towards all of what you are talking about, the Israel-Hamas war. Netanyahu, that point to challenges based around the Pennsylvania governor’s faith,” submitted Kasie Hunt. “And I think that that’s been something, certainly, I’ve talked to Democratic members of Congress who have kind of said that in a straightforward way.”

“There are a lot of Republicans out there who are breathing a sigh of relief that she did not pick Josh Shapiro, and there is a reason for that,” added Hunt. “I think there are definitely some Democrats I have spoken to today who see this as a missed opportunity.”

Watch above via CNN.

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