TRANSCRIPT: 'Inside the Koch Brothers' 2011 Summer Seminar' - Charles Koch's Remarks

Charles Koch's Welcome Remarks

Koch Brothers' 2011 Summer Seminar

Ritz-Carlton Beaver Creek Resort - near Vail, Colorado Audio recorded June 26, 2011 [Appx 4 mins]

Transcribed by Emily Levy for The BRAD BLOG

KEVIN GENTRY [Emcee]: [trying to quiet down crowd] Shhhhhhh. Okay. Thank you very much. I'm going to turn it over for a quick welcome to Charles Koch. Charles, take it away.

CHARLES KOCH: Ya know, usually in a business if there's something unpleasant to do or some guilt that somebody has to take, it's not the CEO, it's some poor guy or girl that had nothin' to do with it. It doesn't work [like that] at Koch Industries. I think it's the principle of market based [inaud]. It's dirty work that needs to be done, they assign it to me. So. [laughter] There you have it. I don't know why I came up with this theory. I must have been crazy.

But we've been talking about --- we have Saddam Hussein, this is the Mother of All Wars we've got in the next 18 months. For the life or death of this country. So, I'm not going to do this to put any pressure on anyone here, mind you. This is not pressure. But if this makes your heart feel glad and you want to be more forthcoming, then so be it.

What I want to do is recognize not all of our great partners, but those partners who have given more than a billion - a mill-, no, billion - [sustained laughter, applause]. Well, I was thinking of Obama and his billion dollar campaign, so I thought we gotta do better than that. [inaudible] you can't run on these deals. No, I'm not, I'm gonna go easy on you. More than a million over the last 12 months. If you want to kick in a billion, believe me, we'll have a special seminar just for you. [laughter]

So here --- there are just a few names here, so bear with me. And I'm not going to read all the first names. But, alphabetical...

[TRANSCRIPTION NOTE: Names are transcribed phonetically as best as they can be understood from the recording. We've attempted to cross-check these names against lists of known attendees of previous seminars and other public records of Koch supporters. For details and background on most of those named by Charles Koch below, please see Mother Jones' "Koch Brothers' Million Dollar Donor Club".]

...The Camerons, John Childs, The Ciokas, The Cortopossis, Joe Craft, The DeVoses, The Farmers, Kelly Friedman, The Friesses, The Fullinwiders, The Gilliams, The Griffins, The Hamms, The Haworths, The Haydens, Diane Hendricks, The Humphreys family, Virginia James, The Levys, The Marshalls family, The Menards, John Moran, The Patricks, The Popes, The Schwabs, Paul Singer, The Templetons, The Traytellas, The Robertsons, Karen Wright, and Tom Rastin, and the principals with the Services Group of America, and then ten more will remain anonymous, including David and me [laughter], so we're very humble in that... [laughter, applause].

The plan is the next seminar I'm going to read the names of the ten million. So there you have it. [laughter] Thank you.

KEVIN GENTRY [Emcee]: Okay, you all enjoy your dinner. We'll be back to you a little bit later. Thank you.

[Dinner break. The evening's keynote speaker...will address the crowd afterward.]