Tax cuts help Trump win fans at conservative Koch donor network

Bloomberg

There’s nothing like $1.5 trillion in tax cuts to help make friends at a gathering of conservative political donors.
Donald Trump is gaining ground with members to the Koch political network, after the president’s name was hardly mentioned when the deep-pocketed individuals last assembled seven months ago.
At that time, the group was skeptical of the former New York real estate developer’s conservative bona fides and some of his policy positions. But then came the tax bill, passed by Congress in December and signed into law by Trump just before year-end.
At this weekend’s gathering of Koch donors at a desert resort in southern California, Trump’s stock, like the US market, was up, even if members of the libertarian-leaning group remain nervous about his restrictive views on trade and immigration.
The network founded by billionaires Charles and David Koch didn’t support Trump’s insurgent 2016 campaign, which knocked off more than a dozen more mainstream Republican candidates in the primary before upsetting Democrat Hillary Clinton. Now, its grudgingly accepting him and celebrating his first-year accomplishments in cutting taxes and reducing federal regulations.
“I did not support candidate Trump during 2016. I was also very critical of him,” said Art Pope, a Koch donor from North Carolina. “Since he has become president and worked with the Republican Congress, I think the policies his administration has enacted, the policies they’ve enacted with the Congress, have really benefited the American people.”
The Koch network hopes the warming of relations will give it an entree to the White House that will allow it to help shape key policy decisions this year on immigration, infrastructure and trade.
“If you just tuned out Trump and his voice and persona, the policies and achievements have been excellent,” said John DeBlasio, a managing director for a private equity firm in Chicago who was among the 550 donors and potential donors gathered at a three-day summit near Palm Springs.
The relationship between the president and the most powerful conservative organisation in the US outside of the Republican Party has long been an awkward one. Before the election, Charles Koch compared a contest between Trump and Clinton to a choice between “cancer or a heart attack.”
Even as some donors and Koch officials praised Trump for passage of the tax bill, Charles Koch, 82, made no mention of him when he welcomed donors. With more than 700 donors who give a minimum of $100,000 per year and more than 100,000 donors overall, the network has convened similar gatherings twice annually since 2003. Throughout the weekend, reporters were prohibited from approaching donors, except during a hour-long window Sunday evening when a small group agreed to interviews.
“I think he has been successful,” Tom Willis, a Koch donor who runs a renewable energy company and farms in southwest Kansas, said of Trump. “In terms of the policies and the things he’s done, he’s been very pro-business.”
The Koch universe does have White House allies, even if Trump isn’t at the top of the list.