Charles Koch
Patrick T. Fallon | The Washington Post | Getty Images
As former President Donald Trump battles prosecutors in three states and a half dozen Republican primary candidates, he and his allies are waging one other war, this one against the political network financed largely by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch.
Armed with over $70 million, much of it from Charles Koch chaired- Koch Industries, the super PAC Americans for Prosperity Motion is running digital ads and other types of voter outreach against Trump within the 2024 election.
For Trump and Koch, it represents the newest chapter within the on again, off again relationship between the 2 parties. Koch, who’s personally price around $60 billion, traditionally backs Republican candidates. But not this Republican.
The theme of the ads is straightforward: Trump cannot win, and with Trump because the Republican nominee, President Joe Biden will likely be reelected.
The ads have landed the Koch network squarely on Trump’s list of enemies, literally.
“The special interests, the globalists, the Koch brothers, George Soros, the Paul Ryans of the Republican Party – RINO’s, at the moment are going to try even harder to stop us and stop our great movement,” Trump said in a campaign fundraising video that was blasted out recently.
In a separate memo, the Trump campaign falsely accused Koch-backed groups of supporting his primary opponent, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“Club for No Growth and Koch Brothers operations spending tens of tens of millions of dollars to prop up Ron DeSantis while attacking President Trump,” the July 17 memo claimed.
But neither the Koch network nor the Club for Growth has endorsed a Republican primary candidate.
The Trump campaign’s reference to “brothers” can be misleading. David Koch, who was Charles’ brother and partner in political and philanthropic projects, died in 2019.
Trump’s closest surrogates are also amplifying the case against Koch.
VANDALIA, OHIO – NOVEMBER 07: Former U.S. President Donald Trump and Republican candidate for U.S. Senate JD Vance greet supporters in the course of the rally on the Dayton International Airport on November 7, 2022 in Vandalia, Ohio. Trump campaigned on the rally for Ohio Republican candidates including Republican candidate for U.S. Senate JD Vance, who’s running in a decent race against Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH). (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Drew Angerer | Getty Images News | Getty Images
“They hate Donald Trump because they hate the agenda,” said Ohio GOP Sen. J.D. Vance on Fox News last month, when asked concerning the Koch network’s spending against Trump. If Trump wins the final election, Vance said, the Republican Party can “reset.”
The interview was well received in Trump’s world. Vance “rips the globalist Koch Network for spending tens of millions to attempt to stop Trump,” is how the previous president’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., described it on social media.
Trump endorsed Vance in the course of the 2022 GOP Senate primary in Ohio. Vance endorsed Trump for president earlier this yr. It is not just Trump and Vance who’re focused on the Koch network.
Former Trump White House advisor Peter Navarro name checked the Koch network when he took a shot at former Vice President Mike Pence recently, citing Pence’s ties to the Koch network as a part of why Navarro had an issue with Pence in the course of the Trump years.
Pence is currently running against Trump within the Republican primary for president. A recent Recent York Times poll has Pence tied for third at 3%, while Trump is in first place with 54% of likely voters.
Still, none of those broadsides come near Trump’s post on the afternoon of Aug. 4.
“IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The Truth Social post got here only a day after Trump was arraigned in Washington D.C. on criminal charges stemming from his efforts to overturn his loss within the 2020 presidential election.
The post immediately sparked debate about whether it could constitute a threat against potential witnesses in Trump’s three current cases. Later that very same day, prosecutors in one in all the cases cited the Truth Social post in a court filing, asking for a limit on what Trump could reveal publicly within the case.
But Trump’s campaign objected to that concept. The post was not a threat, said an anonymous campaign aide, merely a shot across the bow.
Intended goal? Koch’s network of groups.
Trump’s post “was in response to the RINO, China-loving, dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs, just like the ones funded by the Koch brothers and the Club for No Growth,” said the statement, blasted out to reporters.
Asked concerning the Koch network’s campaign against the previous president, a Trump campaign spokesman pointed CNBC to Trump’s posts on Truth Social. A spokesman for Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity didn’t return a request for comment before publication.
