In recent days, Jeff Walz — the conservative older brother of the vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz — has become something of a fascination on the right.
It began last week, when the right-wing activist Laura Loomer called attention to Jeff Walz’s Facebook post from March 30, 2023, when former President Donald Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury over his role in a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels.
“We’ve just become a third world banana republic,” Jeff Walz wrote that day.
He expanded on those views on Friday, writing on Facebook that he was “100% opposed” to his brother’s ideology and he was thinking “long and hard” about endorsing Trump.
“The stories I could tell,” Jeff Walz wrote. “Not the type of character you want making decisions about your future.”
That generated speculation on the right that Walz’s brother was prepared to reveal damning information about the Minnesota governor.
Republicans have been closely scrutinizing Walz since Vice President Kamala Harris chose him to be her running mate, focusing in particular on claims the Minnesota governor made about his military service and fertility treatments that his family used.
“Sounds like a great guy!” Trump wrote on Truth Social in response to a New York Post report about Jeff Walz.
But in an interview with NewsNation on Wednesday, the older Walz said he would not be campaigning for or against his brother and that it “wasn’t my intent … to influence the general public” with his comments. He also indicated that he didn’t want to continue to speak publicly about his brother.
And the “stories” that Walz alluded to, he said, weren’t what some thought they might be. As an example, he said that his younger brother would sometimes “throw up” on his siblings during road trips because of car sickness.
“Nobody wanted to sit with him, because he had car sickness and would always throw up on us, that sort of thing,” Jeff Walz 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 Walz added that he hasn’t spoken to his brother since 2016, except for a brief conversation facilitated by their mother last month. He also said he found out about his younger brother’s vice-presidential nomination through the radio.
“We felt bad that we found out about his being picked as the vice presidential candidate from radio,” Jeff Walz told NewsNation. “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.”
