AMIABLE CHARLES KOCH

“The audience [November 2015] laughed as [Charles] Koch recalled such boyhood misadventures as his expulsion from military school. He amiably described early business mistakes, and he pointedly criticized Republicans as well as Democrats. He complained that many Republicans in Congress weren’t doing enough to “hold the lid on defense spending,” because they had been corrupted by having “big military contracts in their districts” for “weapons that the military doesn’t want, like tanks, certain airplanes.” He expressed a general disdain for politics, noting that whenever anyone told him he should run for President he responded, “What did I ever do to make you hate me?”

JANE MAYER, “New Koch” in the New Yorker, January 25, 2016, page 38.