I'm Josh Spong, senior video producer at Vox, filling in for Sean Ramos from.

David Koch has died.

He was a billionaire businessman, one time vice presidential nominee, and conservative

mega-donor.

Well, I'm basically a libertarian, and I'm a conservative on economic matters, and

I'm a social liberal.

Koch and his older brother Charles ran Koch industries.

The business eventually became the fuel behind one of the highest spending political action

groups in modern American politics, Americans for prosperity.

And Koch was known for being pretty rich, I imagine?

At the time of his death, David Koch was worth $50 billion by some estimates.

Daniel Schullman, you wrote a book about the Koch family called Sons of Wichita.

What's the most important thing we should know about David Koch who died last Friday?

David played a huge role over the course of four decades in shaping the political climate

in the United States, first through the funding of libertarian causes.

And then in the 1980s, working more through the Republican Party, eventually, he and his

brother were able to almost form a shadow party within the Republican Party, a network

of donors and organizations that in many ways rivaled the Republican Party itself.

Do you think it's fair that just because you have billions of dollars, you can influence

elections?

Well, I contribute to public candidate campaigns and there is a federal limit on how much you

can contribute to each individual candidate.

...