President-elect Donald Trump reportedly met with conservative kingmaker David Koch Wednesday night, breaking bread with yet another member of the so-called donor class, at whom much of his campaign ire was aimed.
Citing two anonymous Trump associates familiar with the conversation, the Washington Post reported that Newsmax chief executive Christopher Ruddy was hosting Koch and his wife, Julia, for dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, when Trump appeared alongside incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.
The Post reported that Trump and Koch then had an informal conversation about the President-elect’s preparations for his administration. The meeting had been orchestrated by Ruddy, according to the report.
The chat is hardly the first step Trump has taken to re-establish ties to many of the billionaires he blamed for selling out working-class voters during the presidential campaign. He had dinner Saturday at Mar-a-Lago with Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim, whom he blamed on the campaign trail for amplifying multiple stories of his alleged sexual aggressions.
“Reporters of the New York Times, they’re not journalists, they’re corporate lobbyist for Carlos Slim and for Hillary Clinton,” Trump said in October.
After meeting with Slim, Trump changed his tone, writing on Twitter: “Carlos Slim, the great businessman from Mexico, called me about getting together for a meeting. We met, HE IS A GREAT GUY!”
Correction: The original version of this post erroneously stated that Carlos Slim met with Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday. They dined at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday.
