‘Boy, did we screw up there’: Charles Koch now regrets backing the Tea Party

Charles Koch, pictured in 2012, says that he now regrets his support for the Tea Party

Credit: AP

One of America’s most influential Republican donors has told of his regret at backing the Tea Party, in a remarkable about-face from a conservative hero whose financial support turned the movement into a political juggernaut.

Charles Koch, the 85-year-old libertarian tycoon, said that supporting the Tea Party, whose best-known figures included Sarah Palin, made partisan divisions in the United States far worse. 

“Boy, did we screw up!” he writes in his new book. “What a mess!”

Mr Koch, whose company Koch Industries has spent more than $100 million (£75m) in lobbying over the past decade, was among the Tea Party’s biggest backers. 

He supported the ideas of limited government interference, a rejection of universal healthcare and an embrace of right-wing populism put forward by the group, founded in 2009 in response to Barack Obama’s policies.

Sarah Palin was among the most well-known Tea Party politicians, using the platform to springboard to join John McCain's presidential campaign as his running mate

"We did not create the Tea Party," Mr Koch told the Wall Street Journal, in an interview to promote his book Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World, out on November 17. 

"We shared their concern about unsustainable government spending, and we supported some tea-party groups on that issue. 

“But it seems to me the Tea Party was largely unsuccessful long-term, given that we’re coming off a Republican administration with the largest government spending in history.”

Mr Koch and his brother David, who died in August 2019 aged 79, declined to endorse Donald Trump in either 2016 or 2020.

Mr Trump at the time was angered by the snub, saying their group had “become a total joke in real Republican circles” and is “highly overrated.”

The Kansas-based billionaire would not tell the paper how he had voted on November 3.

“That’s a very divisive question, because however I answer, that’s going to upset a bunch of people,” he said.

“That’s why there’s a secret ballot.”

He did, however, say he hopes to work with Joe Biden on areas of mutual agreement.

His politics remain Republican — Koch Industries’ PAC and employees donated $2.8 million in the 2020 campaign cycle to Republican candidates and $221,000 to Democratic candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics — but he said he is searching for common ground on issues such as immigration, criminal-justice reform and limiting US intervention abroad.

He has joined forces with organisations including the LeBron James Family Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union and some Democratic state legislative campaigns.

“I congratulate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on their victory,” he told the paper. 

“I look forward to finding ways to work with them to break down the barriers holding people back, whether in the economy, criminal justice, immigration, the Covid-19 pandemic, or anywhere else. 

"At the same time, I hope we all use this post-election period to find a better way forward. Because of partisanship, we’ve come to expect too much of politics and too little of ourselves and one another.”