Charles Koch welcome his 400 guests to the sprawling Broadmoor Hotel compound Saturday night with nary a word about the presidential race that has dominated American politics. Koch has refused to do so, but he sought this weekend to reassure those anxious about comments he made in April, when he suggested it was “possible” that another Clinton in the White House would be better than a Republican. Wescott said he will make a “gametime decision” on who he decides to vote for, but didn’t think the comments were a nonstarter for others.
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Charles and David Koch have hosted such gatherings of donors and politicians for years, but nearly always in private. It’s been reported that the group would spend $889 million between previous year and this one, but that was “a wish list number”, Holden said. In exchange, reporters must agree not to identify donors against their will and can only attend certain sessions.
The first priority of his donor network is “to preserve the country’s financial future and to eliminate corporate welfare”.
Trump has been embraced by many Republican voters, but David and Charles Koch have deep policy differences. Mark Holden, a Koch consigliore who has immersed himself in criminal justice reform, said he “respectfully disagree [d]” with Trump’s imagery.
Yet their refusal to back Trump – whose language on immigration and trade is found to be too incendiary by the libertarian-inspired Kochs – is a leading reason why Trump is expected to be massively outgunned by Clinton and her allies in the advertising wars.
The day before, Trump thumbed his nose at the Koch gathering from Twitter.
“They made a very good presentation about why it would not make sense for them to get involved”, said Stan Hubbard, a major donor who is involved with a pro-Trump super PAC, in an interview with BuzzFeed News.
His tweet read, “I turned down a meeting with Charles and David Koch”.
“We’re focused on the Senate”, was his repeated refrain, adding that while the group will not engage in explicit efforts to oppose Trump, it will not run purely anti-Hillary Clinton ads either. It will instead go to helping Republican Senate candidates in at least five states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin and Florida, Holden said.
The billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, meanwhile, are being urged to reconsider their opposition to Trump by some of the donors in their network who are supporting the Manhattan tycoon, including Minnesota media mogul Stanley S. Hubbard and Dallas investor Ray Washburne, according to the two Republicans familiar with the outreach.
“I don’t endorse everything about him”.
Koch has put the network’s budget at roughly $750 million through the end of 2016.
“No wonder that people have by and large lost their optimism, that they’re frustrated and disillusioned”, Koch said.
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A significant portion was supposed to be directed at electing a Republican to the White House. “We’re not engaged on the presidential”.
