Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz's older brother posted scathing statements about the Democratic vice presidential nominee on social media, before confirming to the media that he does not support his brother's left-wing views but wants to keep a low-profile during the election cycle.
"I was getting a lot of feedback from my friends, old acquaintances, thinking that I was feeling the same way that my brother did on the issues, and I was trying to clarify that just to friends," Jeff Walz, Tim Walz's older brother, told News Nation this week. "I used Facebook, which wasn’t the right platform to do that. But I will say, I don’t agree with his policies."
Reports had mounted over Labor Day weekend that Jeff was no fan of the left-wing Democratic Minnesota governor's policies and took to his Facebook account to make his views known to friends and family. As the media reported on the social media posts over the holiday weekend, Jeff and the Harris campaign remained silent as the New York Post exclusively published the headline: "Tim Walz’s older brother is ‘100% opposed to all his ideology,’ believes VP hopeful is not ‘type of character’ who should make decisions about US’ future."
After Jeff's profile went viral on X, a Facebook user wrote a message on one of his public posts urging him to "[h]ave a talk with your brother," who is currently running to be Vice President Kamala Harris' vice president.
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"I'm 100% opposed to all his ideology," Jeff posted in one Facebook message Friday evening, referring to his brother.
"My family wasn't given any notice thst [sic] he was selected and denied security the days after," he added.
"Help MAGA… Get on stage with President Trump and endorse him…; Help save this country….," a Trump supporter wrote on Jeff's post.
"I've thought hard about doing something like that!" Jeff responded. "I'm torn between that and just keeping my family out of it."
"The stories I could tell," he continued. "Not the type of character you want making decisions about your future."
Jeff spoke with News Nation to explain that his Facebook posts were intended to clarify to friends and family that he does not agree with his brother's politics, not to sway voters' views.
"It wasn’t my intent, it wasn’t our intent as a family, to put something out there to influence the general public," Jeff told the outlet Tuesday.
He added that the "stories" he could tell about his brother were simply family anecdotes, such as Tim vomiting in the car on family trips, not stories political in nature.
"Nobody wanted to sit with him, because he had car sickness and would always throw up on us, that sort of thing," Jeff said. "There’s really nothing else hidden behind there. People are assuming something else. There’s other stories like that, but I think that probably gives you the gist of it."
Jeff and Tim Walz are estranged, last seeing each other at their younger brother's funeral in 2016, the elder Walz said. Jeff's wife does text the Minnesota governor "happy birthday," and the pair shared a brief phone call earlier this year when Tim called their mother.
"He called on her cellphone, and she gave me the cellphone. I talked to him briefly," Jeff explained.
"Harris’ team was vetting him for the vice president. He had asked me for some personal information; tax information and stuff like that, and I declined to give it at that point, but that was like a two-minute conversation."
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Jeff said that he will now keep his head down amid the election cycle and will not hit the campaign trail to neither support nor oppose the Harris-Walz ticket.
"There is going to be no further statements to anybody, and we’re not campaigning or anything for him or against him or anything like that," he said.
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Gov. Walz has three siblings: Jeff Walz, Craig Walz and Sandy Dietrich.
Jeff moved to the East Coast after growing up in rural Nebraska; he now lives in Florida.
Craig was killed by a falling tree during a storm in 2016 while camping at a lake in Minnesota. He worked as a chemistry, calculus and geometry teacher in Minnesota, similar to Gov. Walz's background in education before diving into politics in the early 2000s.
Dietrich reportedly lives in Nebraska and has kept a low profile before and amid her brother's campaign for the vice presidency.
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Jeff added that he did take "exception to" how he found out that Vice President Kamala Harris chose the Minnesota governor as her running mate.
"The only thing I took exception to, and I will stand behind this 100%, was that we felt bad that we found out about his being picked as the vice presidential candidate from radio," Jeff said. "And we felt like we probably should have been given a heads-up and some type of security, at least for a short time, because I guess that is a big thing."
Gov.Walz entered the political arena during the 2006 election cycle, when he ran to represent Minnesota in the U.S. House. He was elected that year and held onto the seat until 2019, when he was elected as governor of the Gopher State.
Gov. Walz was relatively unknown to voters outside of Minnesota ahead of speculation Harris could select him as her running mate. He has since come under fire from veterans and political opponents for issues such as reportedly misrepresenting his decades in the Army National Guard before retiring in 2005, as well as his handling of the Minnesota riots in 2020, and flip-flopping on the Second Amendment.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris-Walz campaign regarding the Facebook posts and Jeff's interview but did not immediately receive a response. Jeff did not respond to Fox Digital's repeated attempts to contact him.
