which, frankly, quite a bit a lot better, and va reform, which was good and needed, the government has essentially been shut down. shut down to the will of the american people for a two years. does that sound harsh? i m telling you the way it is. not the way you want it to be. the republicans were elected to congress to move the trump agenda. in many cases, they have frustrated it. that is a factor they passed a massive defense spending bill without any offset and cuts so much for spending caps. secured notes are liberal form, they did not and my chain migration, failed to produce and infrastructure bill, they blocked the president s effort to fulfill his process. the reason many of them got to office in the first place? it was supposed to be the build the border wall. republicans are spending time and political capital on criminal justice reform, which i generally support. this was not the reason the american people turned out to
, warning donors to avoid giving to the koch s powerful donor network, they announced they will no longer support only republicans running for office, groups who claim to support conservatives forego commitment when they decide business interests are more important than those country than party. unacceptable, end quote. joining us to discuss james davis spokesperson for the koch network, mr. davis, great to have you here. thank you. paul: what is the philosophy of the koch s and the donors towards political giving, how do they decide who to support? sure, we ve always been policy first and we advanced a lot of really good policy, working with the partisan coalition that s not nearly been enough, what we said we have to look beyond partisan coalition and look at how we advance good policy because despite the advances on tax reform, the va
have helped change the game. yet, here we are in a very important midterm election. according to politico, at least for now, the koch organization has not supported three of the most important republican candidates that will determine whether the senate stays republican. kevin cramer in north dakota, mike braun in indiana, dean heller in nevada. they re clearly trying to tell these guys don t take us for granted. we support, the kochs, support traditional republican policies like free trade and even immigration, to help with their businesses. the president and his supporters do not. yeah, i mean, the bottom line is they re ideological people. they re where someone like me is on policy. that s an uncomfortable place to be in the trump administration and with populism. you get somebody who cares about debt, criminal justice reform. they care about keeping immigration open to some extent.
the president obviously deciding this morning to engage in this fight. we don t know where it s going. when mommy and daddy are fighting, one wants to live at the beach, one wants to live in the mountains. it s hard to see where they reconcile. i think the direction of the republican party has turned in a poll y populist direction that cares about cracking down on immigration and protectionism. the koch network has shifted its emphasis to criminal justice reform and other things, so these two parties are really diverging. they don t have much in common. i think taxes and the repeal of obamacare are maybe the only issues they overlap on. and we have to go to break, but you re right that not everyone relies on the koch network. but some really significant victories were born out of the koch network, like scott walker in wisconsin, the fight against, you know, trying to take him off the ballot. okay. everybody stand by. up next, lebron james speaks out
king makers charles and david koch. in a two-part tweet, he slammed the billionaire brothers as globalists and a total joke in real republican circles opposed to strong borders and powerful trade. he says he doesn t need the kochs money or bad ideas. the attack comes after the president was criticized at the koch summer network meeting. there was talk there the mega donor brothers are turning their backs on republican candidates, as well might even support democrats. now, this matters not just for this drama we re talking about but the huge divide it represents within the gop between ardent trump supporters who see the president and his populist policies as the future and the traditionalists. we ve seen some great success. tax reform. we ve seen justices. we ve seen va reform. i could go on and on.