The Koch brothers are more than distancing themselves from the Donald Trump movement. They have made it clear that he will not have access to the powerful tools in their political arsenal. The surprising position of the Koch brothers was reported in Politico today and the Trump campaign has already answered back; “We don’t need them.”
In the Politico report, the Koch Brothers are not allowing billionaire Donald Trump access to their sophisticated data and analytic services. In addition Donald will be excluded from their annual grassroots summit next month in Columbus, Ohio. Ironically, that event is managed by Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and prosperity for America is what Trump advocates in many of his speeches. Also ironic is that several former AFP employees now work for the Trump campaign.
According to the report, the Koch brothers plan to bar Trump from attending the annual summer soiree of mega-donors and operatives in Orange Country, California, which will be attended by several Trump’s rivals. If Trump continues to lead in the polls, the decision not to invite him is a real head scratcher.
Politico predicted that “Continued stiff-arming by the powerful Koch network could limit Trump’s ability to build a professional campaign operation to mobilize supporters ahead of primaries and caucuses,”. We’ll see about that. Trump is as resourceful as he is rich and he plays for keeps.
In recent weeks, Americans For Prosperity and Concerned Veterans for America, (Koch-backed groups) have hosted events with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. The Columbus event will feature those candidates as well as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. But nothing for Trump.
It is said that opinions about Trump are all over the board among the Koch network of donors. A number within the organization were apparently offended by Trump’s implication that Arizona Sen. John McCain is not a true war hero.
There is some speculation that the Koch brothers will take a more formal and perhaps public stance against Trump, according to Politico but that remains to be seen. One would think that formal announcements against Trump should not be made given Trumps propensity to fire back with both barrels.
“The good news is that Donald Trump doesn’t need the Koch brothers, and he can do this perfectly without their assistance,” Josh Youssef, chairman of Trump’s campaign in Belknap County, New Hampshire, told Politico. “Their motivations are clearly not to break the mold of political insider-ship. Their goal is to keep the wheel spinning. Trump’s bad for business for them.”
Trump has already hired a number of AFP staff to help with his campaign, including campaign manager Corey Lewandowski who until January ran AFP’s national voter-registration effort. Apparently the ideological divide doesn’t run as deeply into the Koch backed organization as many believe.Though the distance between Trump and the Koch groups does suggests an ideological divide, with Trump eschewing traditional ideological lines and the influential interests behind them.
“I think that’s what is sort of scaring a lot of people, especially on both Republican and Democratic sides, because they can’t control Trump,” Stephen Stepanek, a New Hampshire state legislator who is co-chairing Trump’s state campaign, told Politico. Could that be because Trump is fearlessly his own man and speaks his own mind?
“People are really afraid to speak their mind, and it is actually with the way people react to things and the way that these various groups attack people if they say anything,” he said. “We’re having our First Amendment, freedom of speech, stepped on, walked all over by these various groups.”
If this recent reaction by the Koch brothers is true, it would seem now that political correctness is being exposed in the Republican party.