CNN
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The brother of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Tuesday he disagrees with Democratic policies but expressed some regret for putting himself in the spotlight after posting on social media last week that he was “100% against” his brother’s political views and was considering officially endorsing former President Donald Trump.

Jeff Walz, the older brother of Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, told NewsNation in an interview that he had no intention of “influencing the general public” with social media posts indicating his support for Trump over Harris’ and his brother’s campaign. He also said he has no plans to campaign “for him or against him” in the run-up to the November election.

The Harris-Walz campaign team declined to comment.

Jeff Walz’s comments come after he wrote on Facebook that he hasn’t spoken to his brother in eight years but is “100% against all of his ideologies.”

In another comment on Friday, he responded to someone who suggested he would “get on stage” with Trump and give his official support by saying he was balancing his family’s privacy against his desire to keep his brother out of high public office, indicating he knew “stories” about Governor Walz that would reflect poorly on him.

“I’ve thought about doing something like this for a long time!” he wrote in response to the idea of ​​formally endorsing Trump. “I’m torn between that and keeping my family out of it. The stories I could tell. Not the type of character you want making decisions about your future.”

Jeff Walz said he regrets sharing his views on Facebook. He explained that he made the posts to make his views clear to people around him who thought he was politically aligned with Tim Walz.

“It was a post that I made because I was getting a lot of feedback from my friends, old acquaintances, thinking that I felt the same way my brother did about the issues, and I was just trying to make that clear to friends,” he told NewsNation. “I used Facebook, which was not the right platform to do that.”

Jeff Walz lamented the distance between him and his brother, saying it’s “a shame” they’ve grown apart. He expressed hope for the possibility that they “can disagree and still be decent brothers.” He added that the “stories” he would have to share about Tim Walz wouldn’t reveal anything “hidden” about him.

“When we were younger, we would go on family trips with my brother and we would go in a station wagon. And the problem was, no one would sit with him because he got carsick and would throw up on us,” he said. “That kind of thing. There’s really nothing else to it. People assume there’s something else.”

Jeff Walz declined to tell NewsNation who he would vote for in November. But he has a history of supporting Trump dating back to 2016.

The Facebook comments he posted on Friday were under a post he originally wrote on March 30, 2023, the same day Trump was indicted by a New York grand jury as part of its investigation into hush-money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. Trump was ultimately found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying corporate records.

“We have just become a Third World banana republic,” he wrote that day.

He previously donated $20 to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, federal campaign finance records show. And on the day after Election Day in 2022, he appeared to be responding to stronger-than-expected performances by Democrats in races across the country—except in his home state of Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis was re-elected by 19 points.

“I’m glad I live in Florida now!” he wrote at the time.

Jeff Walz is one of three siblings of Tim Walz. They have a sister, Sandy, who lives in Nebraska, and a brother, Craig, who passed away in 2016.

His brother’s apparent opposition to his campaign puts Tim Walz in the company of Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., both of whom have seen family members criticize their presidential bids. Trump has faced sustained attacks from his niece, Mary Trump, and his nephew, Fred Trump, both of whom have published books about their uncle. Kennedy’s siblings have condemned his campaign at various points over the past year, including after he dropped out of the race in August and endorsed Trump.