Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz opens up to Vice President Kamala Harris about the impact that his dad’s death from lung cancer had on his family in an upcoming video produced for their presidential campaign.
On the heels of National Social Security Day on Aug. 14, PEOPLE obtained an exclusive clip of Walz’s conversation with Harris, where he touches on his father’s fatal smoking addiction and explains why Social Security survivor benefits were the lifeline that helped his family get back on their feet after he died.
“I was 19, my little brother was 8 or 9 when he passed,” Walz tells Harris in the clip from their conversation. “He was a chain smoker, just addicted.”
“After he died, my mom was a stay-at-home mom. She became our rock. And now, she had to go out and get work because the medical bills broke her,” he continues. “And Social Security, and Social Security survivor benefits — we’re fine pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We had no boots. That’s the boots.”
Walz adds in the clip that he believes programs like Social Security — which Donald Trump has given mixed signals about protecting — are “fundamental” to helping people avoid poverty and “live with dignity.”
Walz’s conversation with Harris was filmed in Detroit on Aug. 7 and will be released in full on Thursday, Aug. 15. The video will cover a wide range of personal topics, including food and their families.
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Walz has mentioned his father’s death before while discussing Social Security. When he made a television appearance on Harris’ behalf in July before being selected as her running mate, he similarly called Social Security his family’s “bootstraps” and accused Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance of being out of touch with real American issues.
The viral moment elevated his national profile and gave Harris’ campaign a taste of what he would bring to the campaign trail if she picked him for vice president.
In his short time on the national stage, Walz has told many personal stories about family, including his and his wife, Gwen’s lengthy IVF journey, which inspired their first-born’s name, Hope.
On Aug. 7, he and Gwen told PEOPLE more about their 17-year-old son, Gus, revealing that he has a non-verbal learning disorder in addition to anxiety and ADHD.
“Like so many American families, it took us time to figure out how to make sure we did everything we could to make sure Gus would be set up for success as he was growing up,” the couple said, adding that there is a “secret power” in the way he absorbs information.
“He is brilliant, hyper-aware of details that many of us pass by, and above all else, he’s an excellent son and brother to his sibling,” they said.
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Harris, meanwhile, has also lost a parent to cancer. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan — an accomplished breast cancer researcher — died of colon cancer in 2009.
Ten years later, during an interview about health care challenges in the United States that was facilitated by NowThis, Harris teared up reflecting on when she found out about her mother’s diagnosis. “That was one of the worst days of my life, truly,” she said.
