Reid: ‘I’m not afraid of the Koch brothers’

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday renewed his attack on the billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch.

“I’m not afraid of the Koch brothers,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “None of us should be afraid of the Koch brothers. 

{mosads}“These two multi-billionaires may spend hundreds of millions of dollars rigging the political process for their own benefit. … I will do whatever it takes to expose their campaign to rig the American political system to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.”

Reid has assailed the Koch brothers numerous times in the past two months as part of a campaign by Democrats to make the conservative donors their foil in the midterm elections.

The Kochs have pushed back aggressively, accusing Reid of trying to “silence” political opponents with divisive rhetoric.

Reid called on Senate Republicans to stop defending the Kochs’s “radical political views,” which he said included the repeal of ObamaCare.

“It would be a terrible thing to allow the Koch brothers to buy Congress,” Reid said. “This is also about how they would abuse it in order to add zeroes to their bottom line.”

The Kochs made their fortune from fossil fuels and have funneled money into political action groups such as Americans for Prosperity.

Democrats have a billionaire ally of their own this election cycle in Tom Steyer, who has pledged to spend up to $100 million helping to elect politicians in favor of action to reduce climate change.

Republicans accused Democrats of renting out the Senate floor to Steyer this week by holding an all-night talkathon on climate change.