All posts tagged "tim walz"

The hand-wringing is over — this is how we fight back

On election day 2020, I suggested on my radio program that if Joe Biden were to lose (something we did not expect, but after 2016 who knew what could happen) he, Harris, and Democrats in Congress should set up a “shadow government” to be a visible and ongoing opposition and alternative to a second Trump term.

Apparently, somebody on Team Trump was listening. Or they copped the idea from the same place I did: the UK, Canada and Australia, all countries where the party out of power assembles a “shadow government” with a “shadow cabinet” that regularly informs voters of how and why they’d run the government differently were they in power.

A mere six months later, in July of 2021, the last chief of staff of Donald Trump's first term, former Tea Party congressman Mark Meadows, appeared on a fringe rightwing TV internet show and repeatedly referred to Trump’s “Cabinet.”

“We met with several of our Cabinet members tonight,” Meadows said. “We actually had a follow-up ... meeting with some of our Cabinet members.”

Referring to Trump as “the president,” just as Trump did in daily fundraising emails, Meadows added in 2021 while Biden was president, Trump is “a president who is fully engaged, highly focused and remaining on task.”

Probably the best-known shadow cabinet is the one that forms in the UK every time a new government is formed. The first formal UK Shadow Cabinet is generally credited to the Labour Party, although the concept had existed in more informal forms earlier.

In 1921, J.R. Clynes became the leader of the Labour Party and led the opposition in the House of Commons. During his leadership, the party began to assign specific members to scrutinize and respond to the work of government ministers, laying the groundwork for what would become known as the shadow cabinet.

This structure became more formalized under Ramsay MacDonald, who succeeded Clynes as party leader in 1922. By the time Labour formed its first government in 1924, the shadow cabinet had evolved into a recognized body within the party, with designated roles mirroring those of the actual Cabinet.

The benefit of Democrats forming a shadow cabinet now will be twofold:

  • First, it can serve as a platform for critiquing the policies and behaviors of the GOP. A press conference being held by a random member of Congress critizing, for example, Trump’s anti-labor policies won’t have anything close to the impact of the “Shadow Secretary of Labor” convening members of the press to hear a well-prepared presentation by a person fully qualified to be the next Labor Secretary. More credibility and more publicity.
  • Second, having Democrats fill the shadow equivalents of every major position in the Trump administration gives each of the prospective candidates for the next Democratic administration an opportunity to fully inform themselves about the issues facing, in this case labor, and thus prepares each shadow secretary to hit the ground running after the next election.

Turns out that it’s not just good politics; it could become one of the best and most essential tools to fight for democracy’s survival.

Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-NC) gets it, calling for a Democratic shadow cabinet just like I did, only his suggestion came right after last year’s election. He’s calling for Democrats to “borrow from our British friends and appoint a shadow cabinet to fight back against the worst excesses of a second Trump administration.”

And he’s absolutely right, because what we’re witnessing isn’t normal Republican governance: it’s the final phase of a multi-generational corporate takeover of our government that began with the Powell Memo; runs through five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court gutting the Civil Rights Act and declaring that money is speech and corporations are persons; and now involves handing our entire government over to the richest man in the world so he can ravage and twist it to his own enrichment.

This goes way beyond simply having a Democrat provide the rebuttal to Trump’s State of the Union speeches. The Shadow Cabinet should meet regularly and issue serious, high-credibility proclamations and analyses of Trump policies.

Republicans did this on a small scale during the Biden presidency, as I noted about Mark Meadows. Another Trump Shadow Cabinet member was Russell Vought, who literally described his work as creating “shadow agencies” that could rapidly implement their corporate-friendly agenda if Trump won in 2024. And, sure enough, they hit the ground running with their Project 2025 shadow governing platform!

Meanwhile, Democrats appear to be sitting around waiting for the next election cycle while rightwing billionaires and their political puppets dismantle everything from environmental protections to worker rights to women’s ability to vote.

Picture this: a Shadow Treasury Secretary explaining the tangible downsides of Trump’s pro-billionaire policies; a Shadow Labor Secretary denouncing attacks on worker protections; a shadow Environmental Protection Agency administrator exposing how corporate polluters are getting free passes. Every single day, holding daily press conferences, providing real-time counterpoints to this administration's lies.

This isn’t just some obscure parliamentary procedure borrowed from Britain: this is about creating what the British call “democracy’s insurance policy.”

When you have an administration literally governed by the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 playbook and funded by billions from over 100 billionaire families and supported by a massive rightwing media ecosystem, you need an organized, systematic opposition that can cut through the corporate media’s sanewashing and both-sides-ism to speak directly to working Americans.

The genius of a shadow cabinet is that it would force Democrats to do what they should have been doing all along: articulate a clear, positive vision for America instead of just being the party of “we’re not Trump.”

While Trump and his billionaire backers are playing chess, Democrats have been playing checkers. Throughout the past four years, Trump’s people were drafting hundreds of executive orders and regulations, creating what they openly called “shadow agencies” to implement their agenda on day one.

We’ve seen the results, and they’ve been shockingly effective. Meanwhile, Democrats are still trying to figure out their messaging strategy.

A shadow cabinet would change that overnight. It would create 26 Democratic leaders — one for each cabinet position — who could provide daily, coordinated opposition to Trump’s corporate/billionaire agenda while simultaneously showing Americans what real public service looks like.

Commentator Bill Scher moved the idea forward quite a bit recently with an article in Politico outlining exactly who he’d suggest could serve in a Democratic shadow cabinet, from Letitia James for Shadow Attorney General to Samantha Power as Shadow Secretary of State and Lina Khan as Shadow Treasury Secretary. Former VP candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has also called on the DNC to create a shadow cabinet. Even fascism scholar Timothy Snyder has pushed the idea.

The corporate media and Republican talking heads are already attacking this concept, which tells you everything you need to know about how effective it would be. They’re terrified of organized Democratic opposition that can’t be dismissed or ignored.

Democracy may “die in darkness,” but it for sure dies when the opposition party refuses to organize effectively. A shadow cabinet isn’t just smart politics, it’s democracy’s best defense against fascism with a corporate logo.

The time for hand-wringing is over. The time for organized resistance is now. It’s way past time for Democrats to pick up the Shadow Cabinet idea and run with it.

It's 'fight or die' time for democracy — and I'm terrified the Dems are blowing it

Let’s start here today: Any Democrat who had a part in the Biden/Harris/Harris/Walz 2024 presidential campaign, is never allowed to work in politics again.

That might not be the brave decree it reads like, because that election might have been the last of its kind in American history, which makes the failings of the three-headed campaign so stark.

And if that made you snicker it wasn’t meant as a joke, because if you still somehow don’t think that the American-attacking Trump won’t do everything inhumanely possible to hold onto power in 2028, you need go stand in some corner for not paying attention.

He means to end us, folks.

What you have seen out of this stone-cold racist and his Christo-fascist cult of me-firsts during their first 100 days of this torture test has been but a small sampler of what is yet to be served. It has been the bothersome drizzle before the steady deluge.

By the time this corrupt sicko is done with our federal government it will be completely unrecognizable, and geared around one mission and one mission only: keeping him in power until he has the decency to finally die on his two-ton throne.

Money, as always, is the biggest motivator for this psychopath and his fawning billionaires to kick us into the gutter, but sheer vindictiveness and a never-ending craving to completely wreck this county and turn it into a gas-powered dumpster fire is running a close second.

He is a sick and demented old man, the result of being the most inadequate, miserable person in every room he has ever stepped in the last 78 years.

He has the most powerful court, justice department and military in the history of the world at his greasy finger tips, and if you don’t think he won’t use them against us, I’d like to know what isolated island you have parked yourself on, so I can join you.

So back to the all these Democrats, who are still barraging us with fundraising messages, and think keeping lightweights like Chuck Schumer in the vicinity of power is helpful.

The Democratic Party has never been more unpopular, and it has never deserved it more. The more I have gotten to know about who is inside the 24/7 money-raising machine and making it tick, the more I have come to understand why it is now stalled on the side of the road after going bang.

On Monday, I unfortunately stumbled into a never-ending guest column in The New York Times penned by a guy named Rob Flaherty. Underneath the column, Flaherty is identified as “a deputy campaign manager on Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign and served as assistant to the president and director of digital strategy in the Biden White House.”

Wow. Either that’s a guy with a lot of responsibility, or is one of these Washington insiders, who wears those cheap suits and bargained harder for his title than his salary.

In his piece, I worked for Harris and Biden. Here’s the missing link for Democrats, Flaherty spent a lot of time talking about “opt-in” voters, allegedly us. And “opt-out” voters, allegedly them. Democrats are winning “opt-in” voters big-time, you see, but just can’t seem to reach those pesky “opt-out” types, who he described this way:

“At their core, opt-out voters generally don’t trust politicians or the mainstream media. Many assume the system is rigged, the media is biased and neither party is actually fighting for them.”

That’s funny, because that at least vaguely sounds like me, and I thought I was an “opt-inner.” It hurts to admit that, especially as a guy who gave his life to journalism. But let’s face it, we are all being suckered and rolled by billionaires who own our current-day corporate media and their clever messages of surrender disguised as news.

Before diving face first into his “opt-in” “opt-out” spiel, Flaherty, who’s 33, wanted us to know this important nugget:

“I’ve come up through a party that clings to TV ads and news releases, holding on to a media environment that stopped existing a decade ago.”

I played along and read the piece, but not before asking several times why if this guy was so damn smart and knew about some “missing link” and the fact he was part of an ancient media environment that “stopped existing,” he didn’t do something about it as the deputy campaign manager on Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign when it would have mattered — LIKE LAST F–––––G YEAR.

Except the truth is he wasn’t that smart last year, either, because here is what he said about the campaign just 75 days from the election:

“Young voters are very excited about this ticket, and voters across the country are excited about this ticket, and that’s because of the vice president, and that’s because of Gov. (Tim) Walz.”

Ummm …

No.

Actually if young voters had showed up for Democrats as they had in the past, Harris would have won going away, because here are the facts:

75-year-old white men supported Kamala Harris by a whopping 14 points over 20-year-old white men in this election. Worse? Among all 18-year-olds, women of color are the ONLY group Harris won. Trump even won nonwhite men in this age group by a narrow margin.

That’s called a massive failure, and if we are to believe Flaherty and all his tens of years of expertise he’s dragging along, it’s a failure he most certainly should have seen coming, and acted on when he had the chance, instead of Monday morning quarterbacking in the NYT while this country burns.

Look, Flaherty seems like an earnest lad, who’s got a serious political addiction, but the nonsense he’s dealing to his “opt-inners” in the NYT right now isn’t helping. He is becoming highly skilled at making himself believe almost anything about anybody depending on who is paying him to do it.

Trust me on this: D.C. is just crammed full of these people, who are elbowing each other out of the way to get a rising politician’s attention.

Flaherty’s piece is just the latest from the gang of gung-ho, inadequate staffers in the Biden/Harris/Harris/Walz campaign who spent 2024 hiding how bad things were on the inside to the millions of donors on the outside.

They are falling all over themselves to explain how it all went wrong, despite all they were allegedly doing right.

Rather than reckon with their issues, they apparently just decided to roundly ignore them, and sent out 73 fund-raising messages an hour, so they could use that money to ensure that Harris reached as many critical “opt-in” voters as possible, and join the coveted billon-dollar campaign fundraising club.

For having reached that milestone, and then spent that money in all the wrong places, people like Flaherty still figure they will have jobs inside the party forever, and that is the damn problem right there.

Everything anybody thinks they knew about politics died on November 5, 2024. Right now the survival of our country — forget the Democratic Party — is on the line.

We are officially at the “fight or die” stage of American democracy.

We need to be on wartime footing. We need new leaders with new ideas who understand this. I’m talking about RIGHT NOW.

They need to be leading from the front and everywhere.

We need to plan what it will look like when people take to the streets by the millions because this is most certainly coming. I’m not talking about these isolated marches that have been popping off in the last few months, I am talking about massive demonstrations of people power.

I am talking about the kinds of things that America has never seen before, because I am telling you that if you still do not believe Trump will do everything in his power to destroy us, before admitting he was wrong about anything, then you need to get out of our way, and quit wasting our time.

This is not some damn political game.

It terrifies me that too many Democrats on the inside still don’t seem to understand what the hell is going on on the outside.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.

Veterans slam J.D. Vance for disregarding a mess hall rule 'Marines learn on day 1'

Some fellow veterans criticized Vice President JD Vance's visit to the Marine Corps base in Quantico, VA, this week, particularly when Vance made his way to the mess hall to have lunch.

The Vice President sported a green military jacket and a bright red hat with the words, "Once a Marine, Always a Marine" emblazoned on it.

On X, formerly Twitter, journalist and former Marine @RonFilipkowski wrote, "Marines learn on Day 1 to never wear their cover inside and damn sure never to eat with it on. Maybe Corporal Correspondent went to a different boot camp than I did."

"This boy was a Marine? Why the hell is he still wearing his cover in the cookhouse?" posted "former British soldier and Ukrainian Marine" @olddog100ua. "He is just an absolute f--- up."

ALSO READ: 'Came as a surprise to me': Senators 'troubled' by one aspect of government funding bill

"As a Marine, you’d think JD Vance would know he needs to take his hat off indoors. This add more skepticism to his bull---- origin story," posted screenwriter @Jbug33.

According to CNN, Vance enlisted in the military after high school, spent four years in the Marines, and served a tour in Iraq in 2005 as a combat correspondent. He came under fire during the 2024 presidential campaign for claiming he "served in a combat zone," and accusing Democratic V.P. candidate Tim Walz of "stolen valor" for his own military claims.

The New Republic reported at the time that Vance's military service "wasn't exactly the boots-on-the-ground experience that he's now framing it as," adding that Vance wrote in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, that he was "lucky to escape any real fighting."

Friday, Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance landed in Greenland where they toured the U.S. Space Force outpost at Pituffik, on the northwest coast.

The trip, originally scheduled to last the weekend, was downgraded to a one-day trip after the island’s government categorized the visit as unwanted and "highly aggressive." President Donald Trump has been fixated on acquiring the Danish territory and has refused ruling out using the U.S. military to take it.

'Striking numbers': Analysis finds 'Walz may have blunted Trump's advantage' on key issues

Tim Walz may have landed knockout blows to the top of the Republican ticket during his vice presidential debate against J.D. Vance.

The Minnesota governor faced off Tuesday night against the Ohio senator, and New Republic columnist Greg Sargent pored over some of the early polling from debate host CBS News and found that Walz may have cut into Donald Trump's advantage on some issues.

"Striking numbers from CBS: On who won the debate, it was a wash," Sargent posted on X. "But Walz did better on who came across as reasonable [very] extreme, who is prepared to be president, who is viewed more favorably, and on abortion and health care. Vance's lead on the economy/immigration is negligible."

ALSO READ: The secret weapon Republicans use to win elections

Respondents gave Vance a slight lead, 51-49, on talking about the economy and a 52-48 advantage on immigration, but Sargent was struck by how narrow the GOP advantage was on both issues that are considered their strengths with voters.

"That's just not a big advantage at all on the two issues Trump wants this election to be all about, *especially* compared with Walz's big advantage on abortion and health care," Sargent posted.

Sargent added the caveat that instant polls after debates aren't always reliable, but he noted that a CNN poll found 65 percent of respondents feel Walz was more prepared to be president if called upon, compared to 58 percent for Vance, while the Democratic candidate leads 48-35 on who is more in touch with the needs and problems of people like them.

"If these numbers are right (beware of flash polls etc.), the story of the debate is that Walz actually might have blunted Trump's advantage on his biggest issues," Sargent posted. "My God did the insta-commentary blow this one."

Ex-GOP insider exposes J.D. Vance's 'greatest weakness' for Tim Walz to exploit at debate

Sen. J.D. Vance has a major vulnerability that gives Gov. Tim Walz a big opening at the upcoming vice presidential debate, according to a former speechwriter for George W. Bush.

Ex-Bush insider David Frum wrote in a piece published in The Atlantic on Sunday that Vance, Donald Trump's pick for the Republican party's vice presidential nominee, is made weak by his "thin skin." How Tuesday's debate turns out could "hinge on whether Tim Walz can exploit his rival’s greatest weakness," Frum wrote.

" Kamala Harris used Donald Trump’s psychic weaknesses against him in their televised debate on September 10. Can Governor Tim Walz do the same to Senator J. D. Vance when they meet on Tuesday?" the writer asks.

ALSO READ: Is this the October Surprise?

Frum goes on to cite an example of Vance being set off by a friendly news reporter.

"Watch what happens when Vance is asked an unexpected question by a friendly Fox News reporter: 'What makes you smile?' Vance responds with ill temper and defensiveness: 'I smile at a lot of things, including bogus questions from the media, man.' That insult is followed by an unpleasant laugh," according to Frum's perspective.

Vance is also known for appearing awkward when hit with unexpected statements, which is exactly what many political analysts say happened when the Republican senator made an unannounced stop at a donut shop. Vance's response was widely mocked.

Frum continues:

"It has been said that the Trump-Vance ticket is the angriest in recent history. But Vance doesn’t rage and roar onstage the way Trump does. Instead, he seethes with petty peevishness," the conservative wrote. "His disdain for women who deviate from his script for their life is barely disguised, or not disguised at all. It’s an unattractive look. Walz’s job is to provoke Vance into showing that ugly side to a huge national audience. How to do it?"

Frum points to some "clues" from Vance's past interactions.

"On September 15, Vance was interviewed by CNN’s Dana Bash. She pressed him on the falsity of his claims that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating household pets. That’s the interview where Vance let slip this revealing gaffe: 'If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,'" he wrote Sunday. "What caused Vance to make his mistake? The 'creating a story' remark followed two rounds of Bash confronting Vance with statements from Ohio officials—including the mayor of Springfield and the county sheriff—that all contradicted Vance’s claims. In other words, she presented evidence that people whose opinion matters to him regard him as a liar."

Trump, Frum suggests, "would shrug that material off."

"Trump lies without regret. He often seems entirely unaware of the line between reality and fantasy. But Vance is aware. It bothered him to be exposed as untruthful. It stressed him, and he stumbled," according to Frum.

Read the full piece here (Atlantic subscription required).

'New ways to be deplorable': James Comer slammed for Walz family 'indoctrination' claim

A Republican lawmaker mocked Gov. Tim Walz' family on national television less than a month after the right faced severe and widespread backlash for hurling insults at his neurodivergent son.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY) targeted the family of Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate on Fox Business Friday morning as he discussed with host Maria Bartiromo his ongoing probe into Walz' China ties.

"That's a scary family, there," Comer said. "It looks like the type of family that's been indoctrinated."

Bartiromo did a visible double take — and viewers such as Mother Jones Washington D.C. bureau chief David Corn were outraged.

"The [Republicans] keep finding new ways to be deplorable," Corn replied.

This comment comes weeks after Gus Walz, 17, diagnosed with a nonverbal learning disability, captured the nation's attention with his emotional response to his father's nomination at the Democratic National Convention.

ALSO READ: Donald Trump exploits AP photo error for new $99 'Save America' book

Conservative commentators such as Ann Coulter, Laura Loomer and Jay Weber mocked the teen — only to be told by fellow Republicans they'd gone too far.

"I've always believed in shielding our children from attack," Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-NY) wrote on X. "#ThinkDIFFERENTLY."

Comer's attacks also come as he probes Walz' 30+ trips to China, where the former teacher began his career in education, and suggests ties to the Chinese Communist Party — an accusation the Harris-Walz campaign denies.

"Some of the things the Walzs have said about China, their affection for China, that's very concerning to me," Comer told Bartiromo. "We don't want to set our business models like China's."

These comments did not impress viewers such as ESPN-affiliated Louisville radio host Mark Ennis, who took to X to share a request with the lawmaker.

"James Comer," requested ESPN-affiliated Louisville radio host Mark Ennis, "go one day without embarrassing Kentucky."

Sanho Tree, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, argued Comer did not believe what he told Bartiromo.

"Comer wants to justify holding urgent hearings about Tim Walz," Tree wrote, "for no other reason other than helping Trump."

Watch the segment below or click here.

'If you're explaining, you're losing': Walz jabs Trump's defiant defense he isn't 'weird'

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz jabbed former President Donald Trump after Trump insisted during a Wednesday night town hall he and running mate J.D. Vance aren't "weird."

During the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, event with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity, Trump addressed the "weird" accusations, which Walz has been credited with launching.

"J.D. isn't weird. He is a solid rock. I happen to be a very solid rock. We're not weird. We're other things perhaps but we're not weird," said Trump.

He then attacked Walz and tried to flip the script.

"But he is a weird guy. He walks on the stage, there's something wrong with that guy and he called me 'weird.' And then the fake-news media picks it up. That was the word of the day. 'Weird. Weird. Weird.' They were all going — but we're not weird guys we're very solid people who want their country to be great again. It's very simple."

ALSO READ: Why Trump’s Arlington controversy is actually a crime

On Thursday, Walz took a victory lap at his campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania.

"There's a saying in politics: 'If you're explaining, you're losing," he said.

Walz said he watched part of Trump's event and tracked Trump's insistence they aren't "weird."

"Eleven times. Eleven times Donald Trump explained to use he wasn't 'weird,'" Walz said to laughter. "Ok. Ok. I didn't say it. I didn't say it. I think we might be getting under his skin a little bit."

Watch Walz's speech below or at this link.


Watch live: Tim Walz holds campaign rally in key battleground state

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was to hold a campaign rally in a key battleground state Thursday.

The Democratic vice presidential nominee was in Erie, Pennsylvania, to stump for Vice President Kamala Harris.

The speech comes as Harris prepares in the state for her upcoming debate with Donald Trump, and comes after Walz held a Labor Day rally in a fellow "Blue Wall" state: Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Watch the rally below or at this link.

'Weird timing': Dem uses Tim Walz attack to hit back at GOP subpoena targeting him

A Democrat used a popular Tim Walz line to hit back at Republicans on his GOP-led House committee after it subpoenaed the vice presidential nominee and Minnesota governor.

Virginia Foxx, chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, took to X on Wednesday to reshare her committee's announcement that it had issued a subpoena for Walz to compel him to hand over records stemming from his handling of a $250 million fraud scheme involving the Minnesota-based nonprofit Feeding our Future.

"Time for answers," Foxx (R-NC) wrote in the post.

ALSO READ: Dem leaders keep shrugging off Moms for Liberty — even as Trump keeps grooming them

The committee's post asked, "How much did the governor know about the criminal activity that stole $250 million in taxpayer funds intended to feed children in need?"

Axios reported Wednesday that the move was among a flurry of new House Republican probes targeting Walz and Vice President Kamala Harris. The moves also sparked fears among some in the GOP that the probes could backfire and inadvertently make Walz and Harris look like martyrs.

Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), who is the top Democrat on the committee, suggested that the probe is politically motivated.

"The timing of the Republican's subpoena to Governor Walz is weird," he told Axios, a nod toward Democratic lines of attack against Sen. J.D. Vance and former President Donald Trump.

Tim Walz's sister says they 'didn’t know' distant Trump-supporting Nebraska relatives

Tim Walz's sister is trying to correct the record after a group purporting to be Nebraska-based family members of Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate staged a picture this week in which they all wore shirts saying, "NEBRASKA WALZ'S FOR TRUMP."

Former President Donald Trump called the photo a "great honor" and repeated the claim at a Wednesday night town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

It turns out that, although Nebraska is indeed the state where Walz grew up, the people posing in that photo are distant relatives.

According to The Associated Press, a spokesperson for Charles Herbster, who previously ran for governor of Nebraska with Trump's endorsement but lost the primary amid allegations of groping, said the relatives in the photo were "descendants of Francis Walz, who was brother to Tim Walz’s grandfather.”

ALSO READ: Why Trump’s Arlington controversy is actually a crime

"Walz’s sister, Sandy Dietrich, of Alliance, Nebraska, said she suspected it might be 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 the school superintendent in Valentine, Nebraska," noted the report.

“We weren’t close with them," Dietrich said. "We didn’t know them.”

She said her side of the family is firmly in the "Democrats for Tim" camp.

Walz, a veteran of the Army National Guard who previously served as a teacher and a championship-winning assistant football coach before being elected to Congress and the governor's mansion in Minnesota, has been a target of right-wing opposition research ever since being named as Harris' running mate, but the hunt to find scandals to pin to him hasn't been going well.

In one of the most recent such opposition releases, Walz's brother, who is not supportive of his campaign, cited as an example of his lack of "character" the fact that he used to get carsick when he was a kid.