Jeff Walz, brother of Tim Walz, tried to tone down a savage attack on the Democratic vice presidential candidate on Facebook by saying he did not want to interfere in the election – but he did not stand behind his brother.
Jeff Walz, a 67-year-old grandfather who lives in Florida, had Trump’s supporters in uproar when his private messages denouncing his brother as unfit for service were first published by the New York Post, Some thought he might support the Republican candidate.
In the messages, he called his brother “not the kind of person you want to let make decisions about your future” and said, “I am 100% against his entire ideology.”
Now the older brother of the governor of Minnesota is rowing back and saying News Nation“I don’t agree with his policies, but I’m certainly not trying to influence the public and take a position on them,” he said on Tuesday.
“There will be no further explanations to anyone and we are not campaigning for him or against him or anything like that,” Jeff added.
The older Walz brother also hinted on Facebook at “stories he could tell,” but told NewsNation that those stories were along the same lines as the one about none of the three Walz siblings wanting to sit next to Tim during car rides because he suffers from “motion sickness,” and continued, “There’s really nothing else hidden there.”
Facebook comments by Jeff Walz.
Jeff Walz/Facebook
“I got a lot of feedback from my friends and old acquaintances who thought I felt the same way as my brother in this regard,” Jeff said. “And I tried to communicate that only to my friends… I used Facebook, which was not the right platform for that.”
However, he claimed, “The only thing I objected to – and I stand behind it 100% – was that we felt bad when we heard on the radio that he was named the (Democratic) vice presidential nominee.” The older brother of Kamala Harris’ running mate said, “We felt like we probably should have been given some warning and given some kind of reassurance at least for a short period of time, because I think this is a big deal.”
In 2016, Jeff, a registered Republican, donated to Donald Trump’s campaign. But the political rift between the Walz brothers only came to light when far-right activist Laura Loomer discovered a post from Jeff – the same day the former president was indicted for paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels.
“We have just become a third world banana republic,” he wrote on the social platform. He has made his entire Facebook profile – which was largely apolitical aside from the reference to the “banana republic” – completely private or possibly deleted it entirely.
A Facebook post from Tim Walz’s brother from 2023.
Jeff Walz/Facebook
According to Jeff, the brothers haven’t spoken to each other in eight years for unknown reasons, other than his wife sending Tim a text message saying “happy birthday and stuff.” But he added, “Three weeks ago my mom was here visiting and he called her on her cell phone and she gave me the phone. I spoke to him briefly.”
“It’s a shame, but I guess it just happened that way because he’s my brother and all. You can disagree and still be polite brothers,” Jeff said.
He and Tim, 60, have a sister, Sandy Dietrich. Their late brother, Craig Walz, died in 2016 when he was struck by a falling tree.
Jeff is a Florida resident who lives in a modest community of single-story homes behind a Publix supermarket in Freeport, a town of 6,500 in the state’s ultra-conservative panhandle, about 15 miles from the coast. The small community is represented by Congressman Matt Gaetz.
A Daily Beast reporter traveled to his home on Tuesday and attempted to speak with him. Two and a half hours later, the Walton County Sheriff’s Office called the reporter and warned him that returning to Jeff’s property would result in an arrest for trespassing.
