The Koch Brothers still aren't interested in supporting Donald Trump

Donald Trump
(Image credit: Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images)

Representatives of billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch continue to turn down meeting requests from major fundraisers of the Donald Trump campaign, even after Trump formally claimed the Republican nomination for president.

A pro-Trump cadre reportedly lobbied for a conversation between the brothers and their candidate on Friday, when all three happened to be in Colorado Springs at once, but the Kochs firmly declined. Their disinterest is not surprising, as an unnamed senior Koch official predicted in February that should the election come down to Trump vs. Hillary Clinton, the Kochs might well sit this one out.

Indeed, the brothers have been consistently critical of Trump's candidacy, with Charles in April calling Trump's Muslim registry proposal "reminiscent of Nazi Germany," "monstrous," and "frightening." He has also described choosing between Trump and Clinton as picking "cancer or a heart attack" and labeled Trump's principles "antithetical" to his own.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.