Charles Koch regrets his partisanship: ‘Boy, did we screw up!’

GOP mega-donor Charles Koch said he regrets his decades of partisanship and now wants to focus on bridging the political divide, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

In an interview shortly before the election, the 85-year-old libertarian tycoon told the newspaper that after funding conservative causes, he is turning his attention to issues like poverty, addiction, gang violence, homelessness and recidivism.

Over the years, the Koch brothers — Charles and David Koch — built an influence network that poured money into conservative causes and candidates. Charles Koch remains head of Koch Industries, a multibillion-dollar conglomerate with 130,000 employees.

In a new book co-authored by Koch — “Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World,” slated for publication Tuesday — he reflects on what he called the divisiveness of his partisan politics.

“Boy, did we screw up!” he writes in the book. “What a mess!”

Despite Koch’s calls for unity, his political contributions largely favored GOP candidates in the 2020 election cycle, with $2.8 million donated to Republicans and just $221,000 for Democratic candidates, the Journal reported.

Still, Koch congratulated President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on their election victory, saying, “I hope we all use this post-election period to find a better way forward.”

President Trump and most congressional Republicans refuse to refer to Biden as the president-elect, instead siding with the Trump campaign’s legal efforts to dispute the election results.

“Because of partisanship, we’ve come to expect too much of politics and too little of ourselves and one another,” Koch said.

Tags Charles Koch Donald Trump Joe Biden Koch family foundations Koch Industries Libertarian Party Libertarianism in the United States

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed..

 

Main Area Top ↴

Testing Homepage Widget

 

Main Area Middle ↴
Main Area Bottom ↴

Most Popular

Load more

Video

See all Video