Trump rips Koch brothers
President riled by opposition to tariff, immigration policies
The president called them “a total joke in real Republican circles.”
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday lashed out at the Koch brothers, saying their conservative political network had “become a total joke in real Republican circles” and was “highly overrated” — deepening the divide between the GOP’s donor class and its increasingly populist base at a critical time, three months before the midterm elections.
The comments, which came in a series of morning tweets, were an almost inevitable response to statements by Charles Koch, the billionaire conservative, and his aides who revealed at their annual donor conference that they would not be supporting some Republican Senate candidates who are in line with Trump’s tariff and immigration policies.
At the weekend summit, Brian Hooks, the co-chairman of the network of Koch-affiliated groups, bemoaned the “tremendous lack of leadership” in Washington and the “deterioration of the core institutions of society.”
Hooks and other top Koch operatives pointedly criticized the White House and GOP lawmakers allied with Trump, taking particular issue with their positions on trade policy and increased federal spending.
Charles Koch, who now runs the family’s political network after the retirement
of his brother David, who is ill, was somewhat more restrained, acknowledging that political polarization affected Washington and the country long before Trump entered the fray.
“We’ve had divisiveness long before Trump became president and we’ll have it long after he’s no longer president,” he told reporters Sunday. “I’m into hating the sin, not the sinner.”
Trump fired back in his tweets.
“The globalist Koch Brothers, who have become a total joke in real Republican circles, are against Strong Borders and Powerful Trade,” he wrote. “I never sought their support because I don’t need their money or bad ideas.”
Trump added that the Kochs “love” some of his policies, including tax cuts and conservative picks for
federal courts. Indeed, the industrialists did mobilize their political arm behind the GOP’s tax overhaul package last year, spending around $20 million to support it.
Although they have benefited from the administration’s tax cuts and deregulation efforts, the Kochs oppose Trump’s immigration and trade policies, especially tariffs.
The brothers, Trump said, are now driven by a desire to “protect their companies outside the U.S. from being taxed.”
“I’m for America First & the American Worker — a puppet for no one,” Trump said. “Two nice guys with bad ideas.”
With his tweets Tuesday, Trump escalated a feud that has its roots in the 2016 GOP primaries, when Charles and David Koch backed other candidates.
During the general election campaign, Charles Koch told Fortune magazine that choosing between Trump and Hillary Clinton was akin to deciding between cancer or a heart attack.
Even after Trump won, the Kochs and their network of affiliated groups retained influence in the White House, especially on tax and environmental policy.
Marc Short, who recently left as White House director of legislative affairs, had previously led Freedom Partners, a Koch-backed group. Short also worked as an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, who has met privately with the Kochs since becoming vice president and gave the keynote address at an event for conservative activists they held last year in Virginia.
Trump allies in Washington, a half dozen of whom spoke Tuesday on the condition on anonymity, concurred with the president’s assessment that the Kochs are mainly looking out to protect their own business interests.
“Uncertainty always upsets the business community, and that’s where the Kochs come from,” said a former administration official who asked not to be named to avoid alienating either side.
Republicans still expect Koch to spend the vast majority of his money on helping Republicans. But the personal rift with Trump is not likely to be repaired.
Trump currently has the political upper hand over the Kochs, with Republican candidates far more reliant on the president’s backing than the industrialists’ largesse in all but a handful of toss-up districts and states. But if the Kochs’ refusal to help Trump-styled GOP candidates ends up costing Republicans seats and possibly the party’s majorities in November, the repercussions could be long-lasting.
“The interesting question is the extent to which the business community is going to start to be more actively opposed to Trump policies and this move by Charles Koch and his network could be a triggering mechanism,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of a left-leaning nonprofit group called Democracy 21, which has focused on Trump’s ethics and the role of big money in politics.
“They’re kind of like the tip of the spear here because what they’re voicing is opposition to Trump’s elimination of core Republican principals,” he said.
Charles Koch and his network have the personal fortunes to push back against Trump, especially on trade and immigration, in a way that Republican lawmakers have so far been unwilling to do, Wertheimer said.
While other business interests have pushed back against Trump’s trade policies, they have not done so as aggressively as Koch, he added.
Rick Tyler, a GOP communications consultant, viewed the growing rift as “emblematic of Trump’s disruption” of the GOP, which, he noted, “used to be the free-market party.”
“Now,” he said, “our leaders are silent as we’re getting into a trade war with China.”
At the weekend gathering of the Koch network in Colorado Springs, Colo., officials outlined a $400 million spending plan for the 2018 cycle that will focus on policy issues and political campaigns.
But they were also intent on sending another message to Republican office holders and candidates not to take the group’s support for granted.
“Whether they like Trump or not, it’s in their self-interest to keep the Senate in Republican hands,” said one GOP lobbyist in Washington, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering either side.
“So if they’re not spending to help certain Republican candidates, it’s probably because they’ve calculated Republicans can hold the Senate without them.”