PBS高端访谈:亿万富翁大卫·科赫去世（在线收听）

And David Koch has died. He was a billionaire businessman, one-time vice presidential nominee, and conservative mega-donor. John Yang looks at his life and legacy.

JOHN YANG: David Koch helped his brother Charles expand the Wichita-based Koch Industries into one of the largest privately-held corporations in the world. He quickly became a notable figure in elite New York social circles. The business eventually became the fuel behind one of the highest-spending political action groups in modern American politics, Americans for Prosperity.

NARRATOR: Americans for Prosperity is responsible for the content of this advertising.

JOHN YANG: The anti-tax, pro-small government group poured hundreds of millions of dollars into conservative candidates and causes, often through untraceable so-called dark money contributions.

MAN: The president's doing a mediocre job.

JOHN YANG: The oil-and gas-based Koch network spent just under $400 million on the 2012 election, an unparalleled sum at the time that filled the airwaves with attack ads.

NARRATOR: President Obama's health care law is actually one of the largest tax increases in history.

JOHN YANG: Targeting President Obama and the Affordable Care Act, while long denying climate change.

DAVID KOCH, Co-Founder, Americans for Prosperity: I'm basically a libertarian.

JOHN YANG: In a 2014 interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, Koch defended his political contributions.

BARBARA WALTERS, ABC News: Do you think it's fair that just because you have billions of dollars, you can influence elections?

DAVID KOCH: Well, I contribute to public candidate campaigns, and there's a federal limit on how much you can contribute to each individual candidate. I obey the law in that regard, and feel I'm doing it properly.

JOHN YANG: Limits on corporate donations to political candidates had been lifted four years earlier, the result of the Citizens United Supreme Court battle that the brothers had helped fund. The Koch brothers famously didn't endorse Donald Trump in 2016, over concerns about free trade. But their group did target several Democratic senators in the 2018 midterm elections. In addition to politics, Koch gave millions to cancer research, some PBS programs, and a full wing of the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm John Yang.

戴维·科赫已离世。戴维·科赫是一名从商的亿万富翁，曾经提名为总统候选人，总是低调捐助他人。下面请让我台记者约翰·杨带我们回顾他的生平和贡献。

约翰·杨：戴维·科赫帮着哥哥查尔斯把威奇托的科赫公司扩展成了世界上最大的私企之一。他一跃成为纽约精英社交圈的知名人物。该公司最后成为了现代美国政坛中消费最高的政治行动小组的幕后支持者，该组织名为繁荣美国。

叙述者：繁荣美国负责广告内容。

约翰·杨：该政府组织反对税收，它将无数资金投给保守党候选人和事业之中，通常是通过难以寻迹的灰色收入捐献来实现的。

男：总统的工作很平凡。

约翰·杨：以石油和天然气为生的科赫在2012年的选举中赤字接近4亿美元，这个数额很少有人能企及，正是这样的大手笔让电视上满是他们的广告。

叙述者：总统医疗法案实际上是历史上税收提升最高的一个。

约翰·杨：专注于针对奥巴马总统和《平价医疗法案》，同时在很长一段时间里是否认气候变化的。

戴维·科赫，繁荣美国的合伙人：可以说，我是自由论者。

约翰·杨：在2014年接受美国广播公司（ABC）芭芭拉·沃尔特斯采访时，科赫为自己的政治贡献辩护。

芭芭拉·沃尔特斯，ABC：您觉得自己凭借手里有大量资金就能影响大选的做法是公平的吗？

戴维·科赫：我为公开候选人的选举活动做贡献，为每位个人候选人所做的贡献是有联邦限制的。在这方面，我没有违反法律，所以我觉得我的做法很得当。

约翰·杨：公司对政治候选人的捐献是有限制的，但这个限制在4年前提高了。这是市民联合最高法庭抗争的结果。这场抗争背后的财源也是这对兄弟。众所周知，科赫两兄弟在2016年没有支持特朗普，因为他们对自由贸易的问题是有顾虑的。但他们的组织在2018年的中期选举中针对了几名民主党参议员。除了政治之外，科赫也向癌症研究、PBS节目、史密森尼国家自然历史博物馆投入了大量资金。感谢收听约翰·杨发回的《新闻一小时》。