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The political defense organization backed by billionaire Charles Koch prepares for life after President Donald Trump as the libertarian-leaning group examines policies in which it could push back and seek a possible alliance with President-elect Joe Biden.
The Koch Network has had a mixed relationship with the Trump administration. They applauded Trump’s tax cuts, business deregulation, the push for criminal justice reform and his Supreme Court candidates. They fought against its implementation of tariffs and the way it treated participants in the Deferred Action Program for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
The network has been open to supporting Democrats in congressional races and has refused to help Trump’s candidacy for re-election. A Koch-backed group known as the Free Initiative recently backed Democrats, including Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, during his successful primary earlier this year. Koch-linked Americans for Prosperity, or AFP, backed Republican Senate candidates in 2020.
Still, this slight change in tone of the network could lead to a different relationship with Biden compared to the often tense battles they have had with the former boss of the former vice president, President Barack Obama. The group spent millions against Obama during his re-election campaign in 2012 and rejected a wide range of his proposals, including the Affordable Care Act.
“It’s a very different Koch network that Biden didn’t see much of during his years under Obama,” a longtime associate of the organization told CNBC.
Those who declined to be named in this story did so to express themselves freely.
The network is closely monitoring the Georgian Senate’s struggle to determine its priorities in the coming months, according to others briefed on the matter.
At least one Senate race in that state, between Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler and Democrat Raphael Warnock, was called by NBC News to go to a runoff in January. NBC News has not yet determined whether the other race, between Democrat Jon Ossoff and GOP Senator David Perdue, will also go to a second round. Americans for Prosperity recently announced that they will participate in an Ossoff-Perdue run-off.
The two races could decide the fate of which party controls the Senate agenda.
AFP declined to comment on this story. A spokesperson for Biden’s transition team did not return a request for comment.
Dan Garza, president of the Libre Initiative, pointed to Biden’s goal of reaching Republicans across the aisle as a good sign for his organization. He said further reforms to the criminal justice code, immigration policies and business proposals could be some of the areas where the network could support the president-elect.
Areas of concern, Garza said, include Biden’s proposal to raise taxes, any decision to consolidate the Supreme Court and what he called a “war on power generation.”
“I see opportunities, but I see areas where we’re going to have to resist,” Garza said in an interview with CNBC.
Some of the goals reported by Biden during his first 100 days in office appear to be at least partially aligned with what Koch’s orbit has called for in the later stages of Trump’s tenure.
Biden, according to the Wall Street Journal, is expected to review the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on a variety of European and Chinese products. CBS News reported that Biden plans to completely restore the Obama-era DACA program after Trump’s failed attempts to end it.
Although Trump has signed a criminal justice reform bill known as the First Step Act, Biden appears to want to build on that. His campaign plan mentions the idea of creating a “new $ 20 billion competitive subsidy program to encourage states to move from incarceration to prevention” and the need to encourage states to focus on prevention. job creation and mentoring as a solution to youth incarceration.
A person close to the network pointed to Obama’s remarks in 2015, citing the Koch Network for its efforts on criminal justice reform as a sign that Biden might find a way to work with them.
“You have the NAACP and the Koch brothers,” Obama said at the NAACP annual convention, referring to Charles and his late brother David, who passed away in 2019. “No, you have to give them credit. I have to call it what you see, ”he said when discussing groups working to fix the criminal justice system.
Grover Norquist, the chairman of the US Conservatives for tax reform, told CNBC he has known the Koch brothers for more than 40 years. He supported Trump’s tax cuts and apparently opposed all of Biden’s economic proposals. Yet even he admitted that criminal justice reform could be where the Koch Network finds common ground with Biden.
He also hinted, however, that outside of trade deals, a Biden White House could see a plethora of disagreements with the Koch network.
“Some trade deals are possible. But not much,” Norquist told CNBC when asked where Biden and Koch could agree.
Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor who has attended Koch seminars in the past, says the network may ultimately focus on pursuing its trade goals and protecting its other earnings.
“Koch will seek to protect gains made under the Trump administration in taxation and regulatory reform through the Senate majority,” Eberhart told CNBC. “They can try to reset the trade agenda under Biden, who is certainly more committed to free trade than the Trump administration was.”
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