Tim Walz’s older brother has warned that the Democratic vice presidential hopeful is ‘not the type of character’ you want in the White House.
Jeff Walz, 67, took to Facebook last week to share his concerns about his younger brother running alongside Kamala Harris.
‘The stories I could tell,’ he stated in one of the posts, a five-word warning that may send shudders down the spines of staff at Harris HQ.
The married father-of-two was urged to throw his weight behind the Trump campaign by other Facebook users when he declared Friday evening: ‘I’m 100% opposed to all his ideology.’
Jeff, who lives in Freeport, Florida, with his wife Laurie, followed up that post by replying to others who told him to ‘speak up … at this pivotal moment in history.’
‘I’ve thought long and hard about doing something like that! I’m torn between that and just keeping my family out of it,’ Jeff said.
‘The stories I could tell. Not the type of character you want making decisions about your future.’
He stated that he and Tim haven’t spoken in eight years.
Jeff and his wife Laurie live on the Florida panhandle in Freeport.
In a post to his social media, Jeff was seen fishing in Costa Rica earlier this year.
‘It’s been a dream for many years. Most exciting fishing I’ve ever done!’ he wrote.
The couple formerly owned a musical instrument store from 2001 to 2010, public records show.
In addition to Jeff, Tim has a sister Sandy Dietrich, 63, who lives in Nebraska, where the Walz family grew up. Another brother, Craig, 44, died when a tree fall on him at a campsite in Minnesota eight years ago.
Jeff previously attracted attention for a post he wrote in May of 2023 when Trump was indicted over payments to porn start Stormy Daniels by a Manhattan grand jury.
He wrote: ‘We’ve just become a third world banana republic’.
His latest comments blew up after his liberal 60-year-old younger brother became Harris’ running mate.
A commenter wrote on the post on Friday that he should ‘have a talk’ with his brother over the situation.
Jeff Walz responded: ‘Haven’t spoke to him in eight years. I’m 100% opposed to all his ideology. My family wasn’t given any notice that he was selected and denied security the days after’.
Another commenter seized upon the opportunity and asked him to ‘get on stage with President Trump and endorse him’, arguing it would ‘Help MAGA’ and ‘save this country’.
‘I’ve thought hard about doing something like that’, Walz explained. ‘I’m torn between that and just keeping my family out of it.’
Federal Elections Commission records show that the elder Walz brother has donated to Trump in the past.
He then teased the possibility of more gossip about a man who has already stretched the truth about his military service and fertility treatments, as well as having a DUI in his younger days.
‘The stories I could tell’, he said. ‘Not the type of character you want making decisions about your future.’
He also admitted that he and his brother have not spoken to one another in eight years, though he did not elaborate on why.
Much like his brother, Walz has worked as a teacher in the past, even serving as an assistant principal.
Jeff has told reporters reaching out to him since the posts that he does not plan to do interviews.
The story recalls Barack Obama’s half-brother Malik, who often spoke out of his disapproval of his brother’s policies.
He’s not the first family member of this presidential ticket to disown someone over their ideology.
It was revealed earlier this week in a DailyMail.com exclusive that Kamala Harris’ father Donald owns a home less than a mile away from Harris’ office in the West Wing but has never visited.
Donald has kept a deliberate distance, determined to stay away from what he has described as the ‘political hullabaloo’ surrounding his daughter, whose controversial comments he once criticized as ‘a travesty’.
For her part, Harris has previously described their relationship as ‘not close’.
Her father, who turned 86 in recent weeks, is a former professor of economics whose politics do little to persuade the Democrats’ critics that Kamala is not a proponent of hard-left beliefs.
Forged in 1960s academia, his aggressively Marxist outlook makes him a lightning rod for attacks by Republicans.
The rupture between them dates back to Kamala’s early childhood.
In 2018, Donald made his only public intervention in his daughter’s political career to date – brutally scolding her for comments she’d made about marijuana.
While promoting her memoir, the then-Senator rejected the idea she was opposed to legalizing pot, saying in a podcast interview: ‘That’s not true. And look, I joke about it, half joking – half my family’s from Jamaica, are you kidding me?’
That ‘half of her family’ is her father’s side and Prof Harris was not amused by the apparent reference to a marijuana-smoking stereotype.
In a statement to a Jamaican news outlet, he raged: ‘My dear departed grandmothers, as well as my deceased parents must be turning in their grave right now. Speaking for myself and my immediate Jamaican family, we wish to categorically dissociate ourselves from this travesty.’
There was no public response from his daughter or her campaign team. But the familial broadside was shocking. Soon enough, Prof Harris was forced to walk back his anger.
In a statement to Politico, he said: ‘I have decided to stay out of all the political hullabaloo by not engaging in any interviews with the media.’
Kamala’s true feelings for her father remain opaque. In 2021, the Vice President told the Washington Post that they were on ‘good terms’.
Two years later, a statement to the San Francisco Weekly was more nuanced. ‘My father is a good guy, but we are not close,’ she said.