MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A sister of the Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz says she doesn’t recognize the people wearing “Nebraska Walz’s for Trump” T-shirts in a photo circulating on social media. They appear to be distant cousins.

The photo shows eight smiling people in navy blue pro-Trump shirts, standing under a sign reading “Trump 2024 — Take America Back.” The photo was eventually reposted by former president Donald Trumpwho wrote on his Truth Social platform: “It is a great honor to have your approval. I look forward to meeting you soon!”

The photo was first posted on X by Charles Herbster, a former Nebraska gubernatorial candidate who Trump endorsed in the 2022 campaign. Herbster’s spokesman, Rod Edwards, said the people in the photo are cousins ​​of the Minnesota governor, who is now Kamala Harris’ running mate.

“The family in the picture are the descendants of Francis Walz, who was the brother of Tim Walz’s grandfather,” Edwards said. “They are all Walzs and their wives.”

Francis Walz’s descendants confirmed their relationship with Tim Walz in a text message to The Associated Press.

“Shortly after Governor Tim Walz was named the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nominee, our family held a get-together. We had t-shirts made to show our support for President Trump and JD Vance and took a group photo. That photo was shared with friends and when asked for permission to post the photo, we agreed,” the statement said.

“The picture is real. The shirts are real. We are the Nebraska Walz family and we are related to Governor Tim Walz, our grandfathers were brothers. The message on the shirts speaks for itself: “Nebraska Walzs for Trump.”

Walz’s sister, Sandy Dietrich, of Alliance, Nebraska, said she suspected they were people from that branch of the family. Dietrich and Walz’s father, James Walz, died of lung cancer in 1984 when the future congressman and Minnesota governor was just a teenager. His father had been a school principal in Valentine, Nebraska.

“We weren’t close to them. We didn’t know them,” she said.

Dietrich declined to comment on her distant cousins’ opposition to her brother, calling herself and her family “Democrats for Tim.”

“I know who I’m voting for. That’s all I can control,” she said.

But Tim Walz’s other surviving brother does not support his candidacy.

The last few days the The New York Post reported to Facebook comments from the governor’s older brother, Jeff Walz of Freeport, Florida, in which he said of his younger brother: “The stories I could tell. Not the type of character you want making decisions about your future.” The 67-year-old also wrote that he was “100% against all of his ideologies” and had considered supporting Trump, the Post reported.

In comments published Wednesday by NewsNation, Jeff Walz said he was still irritated when he heard on the radio that his brother would be Harris’ running mate, but that he had no intention of influencing the political debate and didn’t want to interfere with anyone’s campaign.

Jeff Walz told NewsNation that he and the 60-year-old governor have not spoken since the funeral of their younger brother, Craig Walz, in 2016, aside from a brief phone conversation last month through their mother. He told NewsNation that what he meant by “stories” in his message came from their childhoods.

“Nobody wanted to sit with him because he was motion sick and he was always throwing up on us, stuff like that,” Jeff Walz said. “There’s really nothing else to it. People assume there’s something else. There’s more stories like that, but I think that probably gives you the gist of it.”

He also told NewsNation he would not comment further on the topic. He did not immediately respond to messages left by the AP on Wednesday.

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Associated Press journalists Randy Herschaft and Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this report.