The powerful political network of the Koch brothers announces that it is “turning the page” on Trump

The powerful network of political groups funded by conservative billionaire Charles Koch and his late brother, David Koch, has announced that it is “turning the page” on Donald Trump and seeking another Republican to support in a run for president in 2024.

“To write a new chapter for our country, we must turn the page on the past,” wrote Emily Seidel, CEO of the network’s flagship organization, Americans for Prosperity, in a note released Sunday.

“The best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter. The American people have shown they are ready to move on, so AFP is going to help them do that,” he said. she added.

AFP does not specifically name Trump, but its view of him, and preferring someone “new”, is clear.

A related super PAC – AFP Action – is also “ready to support a Republican presidential primary candidate who can move our country forward and who can win,” the memo adds. AFP Action spent about $80 million in the 2022 election cycle, according to campaign finance tracking website OpenSecrets.

The AFP also pointed out that she would no longer sit in the primaries, but instead become active in contests early, following poor general election performances by Trump-backed GOP hardliners in various primaries. The AFP memo argued in the memo that the Republican Party “nominates bad candidates who advocate for things that go against fundamental American principles.”

AFP was founded in 2004 by oil barons and industrialists Charles and David Koch, who largely funded the Republican Party’s right-wing “tea party” movement. David Koch passed away in 2019.

Charles Koch has since spoken out about the division of the nation which he sees as hurting American life and even its business climate – and says he wants to help bridge the gap.

“Boy, did we mess up; what a waste,” he wrote of the searing partisan divide in his 2020 book, “Believe in People.”

Trump called the brothers – who supported free trade rather than Trump’s economic nationalism and isolationism – “globalists” and “total joke.”