What You Don’t Know About the Koch Brothers

 “Sons of Wichita” Author Daniel Schulman discusses the Koch brothers and their influence in the Republican party. He speaks on Bloomberg Television’s “Market Makers.” (Source: Bloomberg)


The koch brothers.

The koch brothers.

The koch brothers wanted to bait?

It is here.

We have done it.

The coke -- the koch brothers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars telling americans obamacare is bad for them.

These two brothers are trying to buy america.

Wow.

There is a lot you may not know about this family including the fact that there are actually four koch brothers.

The senior editor at mother jones is the author of a new biography, sons of wichita, how the koch brothers became america's most powerful and private dynasty.

He joins us now.

The first thing i thought about when i saw your book was it must have been a to research, write?

Because i don't think the guys from the koch brothers want to talk to mother jones.

They are an extraordinarily private family.

It is not just mother jones.

They don't talk to many journalists.

But they did talk to you.

I talked to the eldest of the four brothers.

These guys also spent a good 20 years duking it out in a series of legal batters -- battles.

Of the eldest is not david or charles.

His name is frederick.

He is not really estranged, but he is not involved in the family company.

He is an arts philanthropist.

He has restored a fabulous series of homes.

He is the cool one.

He is a really good guy.

And that he is a really cool guy.

He's like a victorian gentleman.

He is not as wealthy as the other brothers, but still quite rich.

Quite rich.

A hundred millionaire as opposed to the other koch brothers which are billionaires.

Where does their money come from?

They say it's from oil.

What do you say echo i found that these guys are true believers.

Charles and david were highly involved in the libertarian movement of the 1970's and 1980's. these are staunch free-market guys.

They don't want subsidies for their company.

They don't want corporate welfare.

They don't want welfare for the poor either, but they are trying to be consistent in their believes.

Consistent in their beliefs but not with one another over the family fortune.

It was brother against brother in a nasty way.

One of the most brutal family feuds in history.

At the scene.

Who versus harry echo -- set the scene.

Who versus whom?

Charles and david in 1979 in 1980, coke industry is starting to come underscore name by a variety of agencies, including the irs.

Bill starts to get concerned about the direction it's going in.

It is a private company and charles is plowing almost all of the earnings back into the company.

Other shareholders attempt to -- basically, a boardroom coup to depose charles.

The whole thing blows up.

Bill gets fired from the company.

This ignites basically a 20 year battle between the brothers with frederick and bill on one side, charles and david on the other.

And where are they now?

Charles and david are running coke industries.

The bill has his own successful company.

I mean the relationship.

Bill and david were fraternal twins.

They were able to rekindle their relationship.

Charles and bill, not so much.

There has been some slight rapprochement in reach in years, some kind words exchanged.

But it got so nasty.

They were digging through each other's trash.

They believed moles were in each other's companies stealing documents.

Bill tries to whip up an investigation by the senate and a whistleblower lawsuit.

And if this is how they treat their own family are they surprised that they have been created in character by the media?

I do think there's a prized by the way they are per trade in the media.

I think -- they are surprised by the way they are portrayed in the media.

I think they are surprised by being portrayed as republican kingmakers.

These guys are libertarians.

There is only a small subset of issues on which they agree with republicans.

Obviously harry reid is using them as a political tool.

Do they meet any of these politicians in washington?

They are private as far as journalists are concerned, but surely they talk on the hill -- surely their lobbyist do.

They used to have much better relations with the democrats and in the recent years, you can see what's happening on the senate floor with harry reid announcing these guys day in and day out.

And on their website they are firing back at harry reid and other democrats.

Is there any limit to what they will spend in 2016 echo it is not them that's pouring so much money into elections.

It is really a network of wealthy contributors they have brought together.

That is why they are so powerful.

You those wealthy contributors want to stay altra private because it is the face of the koch brothers that the world wants to hate.

A lot of them would want to stay private and that is why this money is funneled through a daisy chain to obscure funding.

I wonder about the libertarian aspect of it because i think a lot of people on wall street find that easier to embrace them the kind of tea party republicans who seem to want to control your social life as well.

One of these brothers ran for vice president on the libertarian ticket in 1980. do they get behind that?

They are so closely linked with the tea party, but the tea party is not a libertarian group.

It is on government spending, but on social conservatism -- they are so on the other end.

Free-market libertarians, there are a lot of new york wall street spurs who feel that way about the financial issues but not the social issues.

For charles, this is been his project for going on 50 years, to mainstream libertarianism.

They are not social conservatives at all.

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