COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch’s top deputies kicked off a weekend summit with donors by summoning more than a dozen reporters to a conference room to watch a video warning that economic protectionism in America is “destructive” and has “doomed many” in the past.

Could the video be interpreted as a veiled swipe at the White House and its overlapping trade wars? one reporter asked.


“There’s nothing subtle about it,” replied Brian Hooks, a top Koch official. The White House, he said, was displaying a “lack of leadership,” and its trade policies were causing “long-term damage.”

So began a weekend that ended a year and a half of careful politeness between the Koch network and the current administration. After refusing to support President Donald Trump during the 2016 election, the Kochs’ political machine in Washington worked with him to land major victories in their shared agenda on tax reform, and the conservative group was thrilled with Trump’s environmental deregulation and Supreme Court picks.

But now, the Koch behemoth looks ready to blow up the awkward stalemate. The massive political network — big enough and wealthy enough to rival the Republican Party itself — is betting that by throwing its weight around and threatening GOP candidates’ access to the group’s vaults of cash for television ads and door-to-door canvassing, it can persuade Republicans to buck Trump on his protectionist trade and restrictive immigration policies, among a range of other issues.

On Monday, the group warned it wouldn’t support the Senate campaign of Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a Trump ally who Koch officials said was at odds with the network on a range of issues, such as supporting big-government spending programs.

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"I know this is uncomfortable," Emily Seidel, CEO of the Koch-backed group Americans for Prosperity, said of the group’s new hardball strategy toward the GOP. "It's uncomfortable for me, too."

Trump fired back Tuesday, calling the group a “total joke in Republican circles.”

“I never sought their support because I don’t need their money or bad ideas,” Trump tweeted. “Their network is highly overrated, I have beaten them at every turn.”

Practically, the Koch network is still a Republican stalwart; the network plans to spent $400 million during the midterm elections, and it has pulled the rug out from under only one candidate thus far. It’s also currently working to support one of Trump’s top policy initiatives: The network has launched a seven-figure push in support of Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination.

But the political portions of the weekend gathering — which hundreds of wealthy conservatives and libertarians paid a minimum of $100,000 each to attend and which had the feel of a Silicon Valley product launch, with giant screens and inspirational videos — were engineered to send a message: This threat is real, and Republicans need to take notice. At every opportunity, Koch network officials sold their shift on politics to their donors and telegraphed it to Washington. (The Koch network also focuses on education, philanthropy and other non-government issues.)

So it was no accident that in Charles Koch’s first-ever on-the-record comments to media during one of his donor get-togethers, he talked about how he’d love to see more Democrats embrace a policy agenda similar to his own. “I don’t care what initials are in front or after somebody’s name,” Koch said, adding that he regretted backing some of the Republican candidates he’s supported in the past.

Koch network officials think they have a recent model for nudging Republicans to their side of contentious issues.

They pointed to the network’s lobbying in 2017 to kill a proposed border-adjustment tax, which would have made exports tax-free while penalizing imports, as a successful example of their policy muscle. House Republican leaders originally wanted to include the provision in their tax overhaul, but the idea died after it faced fierce opposition from conservatives.

Six months ago, the Koch network hailed the passage of the resulting tax reform legislation as a “transformative event.” The donor confab held by the Koch network in January took on the air of a victory party for Trump's tax reform law. The network even announced it would spend $20 million promoting the new law to the public.

Now, the group thinks that if it sticks out its neck more often with congressional Republicans, it might be able to secure wins on trickier issues.

That includes criminal justice reform, where the Kochs have more in common with Democrats than with the GOP. It also includes nudging Republicans away from big spending bills that have passed in recent years: The Koch network was sorely disappointed with a $1.3 trillion spending bill that passed Congress this spring and raised the bill repeatedly with donors in Colorado Springs as a prime example of how Washington Republicans have gone astray.

The group wants the GOP-led government to do more to cut spending, get rid of agriculture subsidies and cut more taxes, too.

“There are risks involved anytime you take a stand,” Seidel told donors on Monday. “But ask yourself: Isn’t the risk far greater when you don’t?”

