I had not realized until this morning how much the Koch brothers hate Donald Trump. Here’s a piece from The Hill, from earlier this month, just before Iowa’s caucuses, about a meeting of their donor network. Excerpts:
Donald Trump is so fiercely opposed by the Koch brothers network that some donors believe the powerful group will intervene to stop the billionaire if it looks like he could win the Republican presidential nomination.
“They are always very hesitant to get involved in a primary, but I think if they were going to do it, this would be the time because they just hate the guy,” said a donor who attended the Koch network’s winter retreat, held over the weekend at a luxury resort on the edge of Coachella Valley.
Both officials and donors within Charles and David Koch’s powerful group hope the real estate tycoon’s White House bid dies a natural death so the group can avoid spending a penny of its $889 million 2016 cycle budget against him. But the Koch network’s conversations over the weekend concerning what to do about Trump were more detailed than previously revealed.
More:
This is not the first time the Kochs and Trump have been at odds.
The Kochs declined to invite Trump as one of the presidential candidates to attend a donor gathering last summer. The attendees were Rubio, Bush, Cruz, and Fiorina.
In response, Trump unloaded on Twitter. “I wish good luck to all of the Republican candidates that traveled to California to beg for money etc. from the Koch Brothers. Puppets?” the billionaire wrote.
This is how weird American politics are right now: the billionaire Donald Trump is the populist Republican candidate opposed to the megabillionaire Koch brothers, who fund much of the conservative movement. In other words, if you are a Republican who wants to cast a vote against plutocracy, you may well vote for … Donald J. Trump.
If your head is spinning like Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist, you’re not the only one.