[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17284-17285]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           THE KOCH BROTHERS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, over the last several months, the Koch 
brothers have been on a public relations campaign. This Koch propaganda 
campaign has accelerated over the past few weeks. Charles and David 
Koch have been going to great lengths to convince the American people 
that they are not just a couple of billionaires who are trying to 
dismantle Social Security and who closed the Export-Import Bank, 
putting 165,000 Americans out of work and costing the government 
billions of dollars. These two men fought a zoo in Ohio, and they 
fought a Republican mayor of Colorado Springs, CO, as he tried to fix 
the city's potholes. They stopped both from happening.
  The Kochs want everyone to believe they are not the ones rigging the 
system to benefit themselves and their wealthy friends. The Koch 
brothers are spending their vast wealth holding newspaper and 
television interviews on their propaganda campaign. In spite of all 
their efforts, this Koch media tour has failed to bury the one simple 
truth: The Koch brothers are trying to buy America.
  During an interview yesterday, the scales fell away once again and 
revealed the Koch brothers' true intentions. In justifying his and his 
brother's efforts to inject hundreds of millions of dollars into 
conservative political campaigns, Charles Koch said: ``I expect 
something in return.''
  The Koch brothers are getting plenty in return. So far they have 
bought a Republican House, a Republican Senate, a government shutdown, 
an ousted Speaker of the House, a shuttered Export-Import Bank, and a 
Republican Presidential field where nearly every candidate kowtows to 
these billionaires. But that is not all. The Kochs have procured a 
media that is intimidated by their billions--too intimidated to hold 
them accountable.
  Consider yesterday's interview on MSNBC's ``Morning Joe'' show. This 
is classic. Here are some of the questions that Joe and Mika asked the 
Koch brothers.
  Joe Scarborough asked: ``It's hard to find people in New York, 
liberals, we were talking about this before, liberals or conservative 
alike, who haven't been touched by your graciousness, whether it is 
towards the arts or cancer research. Do you think you got that instinct 
from your mom?''
  Mika asked: ``Sitting here in your childhood home''--they were doing 
this interview in Topeka, KS--``we have the Koch brothers. Which was 
the good brother?'' That was another tough question.
  Joe then asked: ``You guys both play rugby together, right?''
  Sometimes--most of the time--they weren't even questions; they were 
just compliments.
  At one point, here is what he said: ``You sound like my dad. That's 
very diplomatic. That's very good.''
  Wow. Those were some really tough questions asked by the host of 
``Morning Joe.'' That is tough journalism.
  Those questions are so easy; they may even qualify them to moderate 
the next Republican Presidential debate.
  It seems that some journalists are determined not to get on the wrong 
side of the Koch brothers and their billions. After all, we have seen 
how the Koch empire targets people, cities, and States that do anything 
that conflicts with the Koch brothers' radical agenda. When the media 
rolls over for these modern-day robber barons, as it is doing now, our 
country is in trouble.
  As Charles Koch himself said, he and his brother are not spending 
this money for altruistic reasons; they are doing it for one reason and 
one reason only--for the profits of themselves and fellow billionaires 
who have rigged the system against the middle class. They said it 
themselves. They want something in return, and what they want is profit 
for their corporations. Their own publicist once explained why the Koch 
brothers are trying to buy a new government: ``It's because we can make 
more profit, OK?''
  That is what this is all about for Charles and David Koch: bigger 
profits, more money because $100 billion or more isn't enough for them.
  By their own admission, the Kochs will spend and spend and spend 
until they get the government they want--a government that lets Koch 
Industries do what it wants, a government whose sole goal is to make 
these billionaires even richer.
  Unfortunately for the United States, the Supreme Court has 
constructed a political system that allows them to do just that. The 
Citizens United case, decided in January 2010, has effectively put the 
U.S. Government up for sale to the highest bidder, and right now the 
Koch brothers are the highest bidder. Right now our country has no real 
restrictions on how much money a billionaire or a millionaire can spend 
to buy the government they want. All the power is with the wealthy, and 
that puts middle-class Americans at a significant disadvantage.
  So we can't stand idly by while the government sits on an auction 
block and neither should any American sit idly by. Instead, we should 
be working to rid the system of the Koch brothers' dark money, but this 
cannot and will not happen if reporters and journalists refuse to ask 
Charles and David Koch questions--maybe even probing questions. 
Otherwise no one is holding these two oil barons accountable for their 
nefarious actions.

[[Page 17285]]

  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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