Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro secretly helped a Republican state treasurer's 2024 reelection bid after the official's Democratic opponent had criticized Shapiro as a potential VP pick, a close Shapiro ally said last week.

• Bob Brooks, a Shapiro-backed candidate for the U.S. House, made the surprising comment Wednesday to a small group of Democratic college students. Axios obtained a recording of his remarks, which also were confirmed by a person at the meeting.

Why it matters: Helping a Republican over a Democrat — especially in response to personal criticism — could become a liability if Shapiro runs for president in 2028, as many expect.

• It also could feed the idea — held even by some Shapiro supporters — that he can be vindictive, take critiques too personally and be willing to push aside allies to get ahead.

🔬 Zoom in: Brooks' comments referred to summer 2024, when Shapiro was being vetted by Kamala Harris' team as her possible running mate.

• The Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania treasurer at the time, Erin McClelland, publicly questioned whether Shapiro could be a subordinate to a female president.

👨🏻‍🚒 Brooks, president of Pennsylvania's firefighters union, told students at Lehigh University last week that Shapiro had asked his union to back Republican Stacy Garrity over McClelland in the 2024 state treasurer's race.

• "That was a request, ironically, from Gov. Josh Shapiro because Erin McClelland was running against her," Brooks told the students.
• Brooks added: "Josh Shapiro had requested because … Erin McClelland came out hard about something on Josh Shapiro, and really, the Democratic Party as a whole turned on Erin McClelland. And he said, 'I would like you guys to endorse Stacy Garrity.'"
• Brooks mentioned Shapiro's move after a person at the Lehigh gathering asked Brooks why his union had backed Garrity in 2024.

What they're saying: Asked to comment for this story, Brooks said in a statement: "I misspoke and made an inaccurate comment."

• "Many people in our party — including organized labor across the commonwealth — were upset with McClelland's bad-faith attacks against our governor. The governor did not ask my union to make any endorsements."
• Shapiro spokesperson Manuel Bonder said Brooks' Wednesday comment was "inaccurate," adding, "The governor did not ask Bob Brooks to make any endorsements in that race — and the only races he is focused on are winning up and down the ballot this November."
• Spokespeople for Shapiro and Brooks declined to make them available for interviews. A Garrity spokesperson did not provide a comment.

Shapiro is close to Brooks and has backed his bid for a U.S. House seat, encouraging him to run and then appearing in a direct-to-camera TV ad for Brooks.

Between the lines: The episode described by Brooks on Wednesday appeared to reflect Shapiro's penchant for hardball political tactics — even against fellow Democrats.

• Harris' team heard complaints about Shapiro from Pennsylvania Democrats as it vetted him for the VP nomination. Harris eventually chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.
• Shapiro wrote in his memoir that he took himself out of contention to be Harris' No. 2 late in the vetting process.

📆 Flashback: McClelland's break with Shapiro went public in July 2024, when she posted on X: "I want a VP pick that's secure enough to be second under a woman, is content to be VP & won't undermine the president to maneuver his own election & doesn't sweep sexual harassment under the rug."

• That was a reference to Shapiro's former top aide, Mike Vereb, being accused of sexual harassment in 2023. Vereb stayed in his position for months after a complaint was filed, and Shapiro's administration reached a settlement with Vereb's accuser for $295,000.
• Shapiro maintained he didn't know about the complaint by Vereb's accuser until months after it was made. The governor declined to endorse McClelland in 2024.

🗳️ State of play: Garrity won reelection to her state treasurer post in 2024 — and, in a twist, is challenging Shapiro for governor in this year's election.

Read more.

— Holly Otterbein, Alex Thompson

🌎 Senior Democrats are rebooting an influential foreign policy group to help potential 2028 presidential candidates and bring together national security specialists who could staff the next Democratic administration, Axios has learned.

• National Security Action has picked Maher Bitar, who has worked for Democrats on Capitol Hill and in the White House, to lead the group going into the 2028 primary season.

🏛️ Why it matters: Founded in 2018, National Security Action (NSA) influenced Democrats' messaging on foreign policy in the 2020 election and ultimately helped staff much of President Biden's national security team.

• That included then-National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who co-founded NSA.
• The group aims to have a similar influence in the 2028 election and the next Democratic administration.

Ben Rhodes, who founded the group with Sullivan and is on its board, said the group's "two most interesting projects to think about are the pipeline of people who might work on campaigns and populate a Democratic administration, and then the ideas that can form a progressive or Democratic foreign policy going forward."

• "I think the next Democratic administration should look quite different [from the Biden administration]," he added. "It's kind of time to pass the baton so there's a really great opportunity to try to talent spot, and help elevate some different voices."

The big picture: NSA's challenge will be navigating the divides on foreign policy in the Democratic Party that are much deeper than they were during President Trump's first term.

• 🇮🇱 80% of Democrats now view Israel unfavorably, up from 53% in 2022, before Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, per Pew. The party is also unsettled on issues like tariffs, China and artificial intelligence.
• That skepticism has split the party and made some on the left wary of people who served in the Biden administration.

As Axios CEO Jim VandeHei noted in his C-Suite newsletter yesterday, 40 of 47 Senate Democrats voted last month to block arms sales to Israel.

• Among them: every Democratic senator viewed as seriously weighing a White House bid — Arizona's Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, New Jersey's Cory Booker, Michigan's Elissa Slotkin, Georgia's Jon Ossoff and Connecticut's Chris Murphy.

What they're saying: "The center of gravity has shifted on the relationship with Israel, and there will be a debate about the nature of the relationship going forward," said Sullivan, who rejoined NSA's board after leaving the Biden administration.

Read more.

— Alex Thompson

A look at what potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders are up to:

• Shapiro sat down with Kylie Kelce — whom he dubbed the "Queen of Philadelphia" — for her video series "FAFO."
• 📺 Shapiro's 2026 opponent in the Pennsylvania governor's race, Garrity, is launching an attack ad Tuesday mocking Shapiro's social media videos. The Garrity campaign told us it would start with $500,000 for the TV ad buy.
• 🩺 New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez broke from progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders on mass working-class tax cuts, telling NOTUS: "If people want to choose between whether they want guaranteed health care or a 5% tax rebate, people are going to want guaranteed health care."
• Maryland Gov. Wes Moore became the latest potential 2028er to go on "The Adam Friedland Show." He talked about the Iran war, Oprah, and reading the autobiographies of Malcolm X and Colin Powell.
• 🗳️ Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is going to Butte, Mont., on May 17 for a rally supporting a potential campaign finance ballot initiative.
• 💰 Kelly, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Shapiro have met with wealthy investors and financiers in recent months, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• 🎙️ Beshear is headlining the South Carolina Democratic Party's Blue Palmetto Dinner on May 29. He'll also be the keynoter at the New Hampshire Democratic Party's convention May 16.
• Murphy announced he's going to be rolling out endorsements for House candidates and started with Bobby Pulido in Texas.
• 🎤 Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker will be the keynote speaker at the Texas Democratic Party's opening luncheon for its June 26 convention.
• Pritzker, a billionaire, has privately signaled that he would not self-finance his entire campaign in 2028, NBC News' Natasha Korecki scooped.
• 🍺 Gallego told Semafor's Dave Weigel that with "100%" certainty, he'd never been intoxicated to the point that he had done something he couldn't remember. He acknowledged having a "reputation" for late nights and drinking "before having kids."
• Harris is going to Nevada this week and will host a fundraiser for state Attorney General Aaron Ford, who's running for governor, the Nevada Independent first reported. Ford would be Nevada's first Black governor if he wins in November.
• 💪 Asked about running for president in 2028, former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on the "Is This Working?" podcast: "I would love the job. How's that for honest? No other freaking politician who's actually running would say that."

🤓 Gallego spent four years on his high school's varsity team — for the Scholastic Bowl. He was widely regarded as the anchor of the competitive academic squad at the Chicago area's Evergreen Park Community High School, where he graduated in 1998.

• 🌟 "As a freshman, he played a crucial role on the varsity team," read one of Gallego's yearbooks, which was viewed by Axios.
• Another yearbook said that when it came to the Scholastic Bowl's quiz competitions, "the key player is Ruben."
• The yearbook described Gallego's brainy crew as "small but talented."

⚾️ Gallego, who's considering a run for president in 2028, also was part of his school's student government, baseball team and theater program.

• All those extracurriculars and lightning-round quizzes paid off: After coming from humble beginnings, Gallego got into Harvard.