Trump knocks Charles Koch: ‘Very stupid, awkward, and highly overrated’

Former President Trump on Wednesday knocked billionaire conservative megadonor Charles Koch as “highly overrated.”

His comments were in response to reporting from June that Koch raised tens of millions of dollars to try to find an alternative to the former president in 2024.

“Very stupid, awkward, and highly overrated Globalist Charles Koch of the Koch Network doesn’t have a clue,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform.

“He said his best years were the four years during the Trump Administration, and now his people are aimlessly throwing away other people’s money,” Trump continued. “Watch what happens to Charles Koch!”

In his post, he included a link to a June article from The New York Times reporting that the Koch political network raised more than $70 million to “help Republicans move past” the former president and to support candidates up and down the ballot. Trump is the current front-runner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary race by a reliable double-digit margin. 

The Times also reported that the Koch-affiliated Americans for Prosperity Action network would be wading into the GOP primary battle for the first time since it began nearly 20 years ago. 

Charles and his brother, David Koch — who died in 2019 — resisted Trump’s rise to the presidency in 2016 but supported his Supreme Court picks, and many officials in the Koch network ended up working under the Trump administration. 

The Koch brothers have been majorly influential in conservative politics. Their network spent nearly $500 million in GOP races and supporting conservative policies in the 2020 election cycle.