Latest / FDD Morning Brief / Qatar's $400 billion grip on America | feat. Natalie Ecanow

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Qatar's $400 billion grip on America | feat. Natalie Ecanow · FDD Morning Brief

0:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning.
0:12
[SPEAKER_00]: It's Friday, June 5th, the multi-front war in the Middle East is now 972 days old.
0:19
[SPEAKER_00]: 972.
0:20
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the country code for Israel.
0:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host, Jonathan Shanzer.
0:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back.
0:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet again, to the FTV morning, Greece.
0:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, no surprise here, but there is still no deal to end the war between Iran and the United States.
0:32
[SPEAKER_00]: As we've noted here in this program, it's not much of a war right now.
0:36
[SPEAKER_00]: It's more of a mutual blockade that is simply stressing people out whenever they pump gas.
0:41
[SPEAKER_00]: But in the meantime, US President Donald Trump came out and said what many of my Israeli contacts have been saying since the 12-day war of last year, namely that America does not need to deal with the Islamic
0:56
[SPEAKER_00]: as Donald Trump said, and I quote, there's no reason to.
0:59
[SPEAKER_00]: It's entombed and quote.
1:01
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not wrong, folks, which means that this protracted conflict, not conflict, is really not about extracting uranium.
1:09
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really about whether the psychos in the Islamic Republic will allow free maritime movement in the state of Formus.
1:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And right now, they're not.
1:18
[SPEAKER_00]: The UK and France have finalized plans for a multinational mind clearing mission in the state of Formus within days of an agreement,
1:26
[SPEAKER_00]: such as one might look between the U.S. and Iran to reopen it.
1:30
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right, folks.
1:30
[SPEAKER_00]: They will only free up the international water wave.
1:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It is blocked by the world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism after the war ends.
1:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Not during said conflict, which is when they are needed.
1:41
[SPEAKER_00]: The French are not exactly known historically for their bravery and battle over the last century, so maybe we could have seen this coming.
1:48
[SPEAKER_00]: But the prince heck, they went all in with us in Iraq, come to think of it, maybe that didn't work out so well.
1:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps that explains things, but let's be real.
1:56
[SPEAKER_00]: This is barely an American war anymore.
1:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, our ships are still there and we're still on war footing, but it's Europe that is having trouble accessing oil.
2:05
[SPEAKER_00]: We have plenty of it here at home and plenty natural gas too Europe has a true energy crisis ours is just a spike in oil prices so it would truly be in their interest to clear the street of those minds not to mention other Iranian threats I'm not saying this is simple or easy and I'm not saying it will be a popular move but I gotta ask.
2:26
[SPEAKER_00]: How much are America's allies going to let this crisis linger?
2:29
[SPEAKER_00]: The Iranians are beginning to think this is the new normal, and I got news for you.
2:34
[SPEAKER_00]: If something doesn't start to give, it just might be.
2:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Now for your headlines, headline one, the duplicitous, conniving and corrupt state of Qatar is going to provide $6 billion billion to Iran's collapsing economy.
2:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the scoop.
2:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Sources told Israeli media that Qatar agreed to hand the regime a $6 billion line of credit during talks with Iranian officials in Doha last week.
2:58
[SPEAKER_00]: The money is supposed to just purchase civilian goods, but I mean, come on.
3:02
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the Islamic Republic we're talking about here.
3:05
[SPEAKER_00]: They, I mean, are constantly circumventing sanctions.
3:08
[SPEAKER_00]: The Trump administration is reportedly aware of the arrangement which would help to run circumvent both US blockade of the state of Formus and US sanctions.
3:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's hoping that the Donald comes in off the top rope to put a stop to all of this nonsense.
3:22
[SPEAKER_00]: headline two, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, Unifill, as we call it, you win international forces in Lebanon.
3:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, they're going to pack up and go home, come December 31st.
3:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Huzah, but wait, before you uncorrect that bubbly, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who's on his way out, has some ideas for the replacements of Unifill.
3:43
[SPEAKER_00]: He presented three options to the UN Security Council, and guess what?
3:47
[SPEAKER_00]: They all involve UN monitoring.
3:48
[SPEAKER_00]: If this, as if that is proven wildly successful at checking his baller over the last, I don't know, several decades, this is your regular reminder that the UN is a clown show with some very expensive real estate in Manhattan.
4:01
[SPEAKER_00]: headline three speaking of South Lebanon yesterday is balla rejected the latest ceasefire agreement despite both the Israeli and Lebanese governments agreeing to move forward.
4:09
[SPEAKER_00]: A reminder here I suppose that the enemy always gets a boat.
4:13
[SPEAKER_00]: President Trump later said that he spoke with his balla in that quote,
4:17
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't reject me."
4:18
[SPEAKER_00]: End quote.
4:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I get to ask, who did he talk to?
4:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Secretary General Nime Cosm in acquiring mines when I know.
4:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, according to Trump progress is being made, Pota says he wants peace for Lebanon and I think we all do, but that won't happen as long as his ball of remains armed and in charge of big chunks of Lebanon.
4:37
[SPEAKER_00]: and headline for the Rump of the Islamic Republic has been hyping a statement supposedly issued by Supreme Leader Mochdal Bahamini claiming that Tehran has dealt the U.S. in Israel a quote, decisive blow and quote, scary, and that both countries have been deeply humiliated.
4:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that's pretty rich coming from a man who's not been seen since the first day of the war, except in the form of a cardboard cutout or an AI rendering, truly bizarre times we live in folks.
5:07
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, it's now time for our main event.
5:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And today's guest is FDD Senior Research Analyst Natalie Icono.
5:13
[SPEAKER_00]: If that name rings a bell, that's because she's been occasionally hosting this show when I'm out gallevanting or you know, working from someplace else.
5:21
[SPEAKER_00]: In terms of this program, Natalie actually wears three hats.
5:24
[SPEAKER_00]: She's a longtime writer, part-time host, and now, first-time guest.
5:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, we're going to be talking about my least favorite major non-NATO ally of the United States, Natalie just wrote an exceptional memo with a forward-buy yours truly on Cotari Farn investment in the United States.
5:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So why should we care that this tiny Gulf Emirate is poured nearly a half a trillion dollars into the land of the free?
5:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let's hear from Natalie about why this matters.
5:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Right now.
5:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back, yet again, to the F2D Morning Brief, Natalie Conno.
5:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for having me.
5:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's great to have you.
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: First question.
6:00
[SPEAKER_00]: So the toughest question I'm going to ask you.
6:02
[SPEAKER_00]: You ready?
6:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, hit me.
6:04
[SPEAKER_00]: OK. Who is your favorite FDD Morning Brief post?
6:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like this is maybe a trick question.
6:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But I will say with full confidence that you are my favorite FDD Morning Brief.
6:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, come on.
6:15
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, flattery will only get you, I don't know, part of the way there.
6:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Not to see none.
6:19
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not fat.
6:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not your self.
6:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Could definitely don't myself.
6:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you're doing just great.
6:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so you've got a new report out at fdd.org, which everybody needs to go to right now and download this thing and read it.
6:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But first, just tell us, why did you write it?
6:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
6:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So kind of a simple answer.
6:41
[SPEAKER_01]: As you mentioned at the outset of the program, the memo maps all of the money that the cutaries have spent in the United States, which seems like a simple task.
6:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really not a simple task to map that money.
6:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And shortly after October 7th, the cutaries, I think, came on a lot of people's radars for obvious reasons.
6:56
[SPEAKER_01]: They were mediating hostage talks.
6:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And people started, you know, I'm funding a loss of this.
7:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And finally, I'm lost too.
7:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, people started chattering about Catari money.
7:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It flowing to campuses in the United States.
7:09
[SPEAKER_01]: It, you know, being sunk into properties in New York.
7:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Trump said something about $1 trillion.
7:15
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a report in the free press that said $100 billion.
7:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And all these numbers are floating around.
7:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And all these talking points are floating around.
7:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wanted to sit down and map it all out.
7:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And let all that clearly and figure out what exactly what was going on.
7:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And so let's talk about it.
7:29
[SPEAKER_00]: How much money did you find and where did Qatar spend it in this country?
7:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the grand total is about $400 billion in change.
7:37
[SPEAKER_01]: That's billion with a B.
7:40
[SPEAKER_01]: That's about $1.2 million per Catory Citizen, which is absolutely staggering.
7:46
[SPEAKER_01]: The money is very much spread from coast to coast in almost every industry, defense, energy, real estate like I mentioned, some places you might not expect, like sports, Hollywood movie studios,
8:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Disaster relief funds, youth programs, of course, education.
8:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really spread everywhere in a way that I think most Americans don't quite understand how often they're engaging with Catari money on a daily basis.
8:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, how much of it was charity?
8:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I don't need you to give me exact numbers, but I mean, I gotta say, I think most Americans would probably take a fence at the idea that we're the world's largest economy in the world, or second largest depending on where China sits right now.
8:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're getting all this money that is being given to us by a foreign government as charity.
8:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Like America is not a charity, right?
8:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it depends on how you think about charity versus investment versus influence.
8:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I broke down my memo into I think it's 17 different categories.
8:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of those categories are obvious influence plays, lobbying, public relations, media to a certain extent education.
9:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Some things are pretty much
9:06
[SPEAKER_01]: straightforward investments, arguably real estate seed funding for startups, and then there's stuff that falls in the gray area.
9:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So grants to youth sports programs or investments in museums, things like that, where on the surface the money seems benign if not benevolent
9:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Contributes to a long game, I would say, where the categories are slowly purchasing good will all over the country, and that good will helps, you know, line, I wouldn't say blind people, that sounds a bit too nefarious, but people tend to not even think about the, the more adversarial things that the categories do and engage in when they're engaging with the good stuff every day, and so the money that's buying this good will sort of inherently is an influence play.
10:00
[SPEAKER_00]: But if masks all the bad behavior, right?
10:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It's ours as we always say, our sense and firefighter, that's what the Qataris are known for.
10:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Just as a reminder for folks that maybe haven't been watching this program for the last, you know, I don't know, two years.
10:13
[SPEAKER_00]: What are the Qataris known to have done that they're trying to mask?
10:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, okay, so we'll start with Hamas, like you mentioned, long time Hamas sponsors, the support goes back to the 90s, hosting, funding, rhetorical support on Al Jazeera, if not outright support by putting Hamas leaders on air.
10:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Muslim brotherhood, Al Jazeera is a major piece of the Muslim brotherhood media empire.
10:39
[SPEAKER_01]: That Taliban, of course, they're also hosted to the Taliban.
10:43
[SPEAKER_01]: They have paid multi-million dollar rancums to a range of terrorist groups across the Middle East to retrieve hostages.
10:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, pretty much name a terrorist group or an extremist group and there's probably some Kittari money sloshing around in there.
10:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And I should also mention providing a safe haven to private funders of terrorists.
11:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just coming from the regime itself, but they're allowing, you know, private citizens to fund money to Hamas the Taliban, you name it.
11:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, so we had David Weinberg at FKD years ago, Chronicle, Al Qaeda, and ISIS senior leaders and fundraisers that were based in Doha with the full knowledge of the Katari government.
11:18
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, it even mentioned the bribing of the World Cup.
11:22
[SPEAKER_00]: car gate in Europe, car gate in Israel.
11:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's just a huge amount of dirty money that the Qataris have been spreading around.
11:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And I get to tell you, for me, when I look at $400 billion that is all above board, you have the receipts, it's all out there in the open.
11:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't even cover the dirty stuff that we can't track.
11:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And we know it's out there in all these other countries.
11:44
[SPEAKER_00]: You think it's not here?
11:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm sure it's here.
11:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we saw whiffs of that with them in Nendez case.
11:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't believe any charges were brought against Ketari officials in that corruption scheme, but the state of Qatar was named as part of the corruption scheme that brought down former Senator Robert Mnendez.
12:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not just corruption.
12:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It's also close relations with China with Russia up until the current war with Iran.
12:10
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the headline you mentioned earlier in the program about the Katari's freeing up $6 billion for the regime, that's not the first time something like this has happened.
12:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you've got the influence and the terror finance piece, you've got the corruption piece, you've got the close with American adversaries piece.
12:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And it all sort of comes together to paint this picture of like, wait a minute, maybe these guys aren't really like the close allies they claim to be or the close allies that the US government portrays them to be.
12:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
12:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's right.
12:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, we are on the eve when we talk about influence buying around the eve of, I guess, rolling out this $400 million plane that the Qataris gave us, you know, again, just large ass, right?
12:49
[SPEAKER_00]: They just, because they love us so much, they just decided to give us a $400 million plane.
12:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
12:55
[SPEAKER_00]: That looks like naked influence paddling to me.
12:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, tell us, I mean, there are a couple of other things in Washington that we've tracked things that were money that they've laid out that seems really clearly designed to influence people here in the capital.
13:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So tell us about those.
13:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
13:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think the most obvious thing is the lobbyists and the PR firms.
13:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I went through the database of disclosures submitted to the Department of Justice, pursuant to the Foreign Agents Registration Act or Fera.
13:24
[SPEAKER_01]: That documents all the money that the categories have spent employing case read firms to go to the Hill and engage with offices on...
13:31
[SPEAKER_01]: the defense budget on, you know, just general middle-east developments in the middle-east.
13:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Basically, any issue that you can imagine that the Qataris would be interested in, chances are you can find that in the fair documents.
13:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Also media campaigns, a lot of lobbying activity escalated after 2017 when the Saudis and Emirati's blockaded Qatar, and then there was sort of this competition to see who could, you know,
13:58
[SPEAKER_01]: employ the most lobbyist in win the, it was the Trump administration's favor in that spat.
14:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of that activity is within the last 10 years.
14:07
[SPEAKER_01]: But outside of like the actual like formal lobbying system, the Kittari's own stakes in all of the Washington sports teams, they've sponsored the congressional baseball game.
14:18
[SPEAKER_01]: They paid to keep the metro open late when the capitals were in the Stanley Cup.
14:24
[SPEAKER_01]: they have, you know, several properties across across the city, including some historic properties, historic landmarks that they've spent millions of dollars purchasing.
14:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Just this past fall, the Qataris opened their new embassy building, which is this massive building.
14:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of it near our office is actually, and there was a major party.
14:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And just, they, oh, they, I should mention they also, every year, sponsor a party on White House
14:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's really everywhere and, you know, you're interested in sports, you're just an media, you're interested in government, you're, again, chances are you're going to touch guitar money at some point.
15:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so, yeah, and by the way, all that I think is deeply troubling and I don't understand why we're okay with all of this, we should just not be allowing foreign governments to just purchase influence in Washington and hand over fist.
15:13
[SPEAKER_00]: But okay, talk to me about the states that are most saturated with cattari money, but by the way, I think we should just note the fact that the states have allowed this, maybe they don't even know it, right, but like we have identified where the cattari is with the most active so play it on us.
15:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so I think the highlights are taxist, taxist first and foremost, and the investments in taxes are mostly in the energy sector.
15:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Energy is one in terms of sheer dollar amount, one of the largest sectors that I've found, which makes a lot of sense when you think about the Qataris as some of the world's largest producers and experts of natural gas.
15:53
[SPEAKER_01]: South Carolina is a major hub for defense investments outside of the formal arm sales process.
15:59
[SPEAKER_01]: The Qatari set up an American subsidiary of their defense company in Charleston.
16:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And they operate with essentially a drone research and development facility.
16:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called John's Island.
16:12
[SPEAKER_01]: They spent many millions of dollars setting that up.
16:15
[SPEAKER_01]: New York is a major hub for real estate and finance.
16:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, a lot of money going into Silicon Valley in tech startups.
16:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And then one interesting thing that I found that's not necessarily large in terms of dollar amount, but potentially large in terms of influence and building goodwill is business to business ties in Florida.
16:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen a lot of activity around like the US Qatar business council.
16:41
[SPEAKER_01]: you know bringing the mayor of Miami to do how much he's not the only mayor to have gone to do how but he's definitely one of them so a lot of activity down in Florida as well.
16:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay so all right I mean all fascinating and I would imagine that a bunch of these governors in attorney general maybe we want to start to take a closer look now that you've got this report out and by the way folks all of these dollar amounts that Natalie track
17:07
[SPEAKER_00]: we have the receipts.
17:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's a bunch of stuff where we don't have the receipts, and that's why it's, and I'm going to put this in air quotes, only $400 billion, right, because what we actually saw was a number that was much bigger, and so, I mean, maybe just tell us how you hedged what the upper end of this looks like and why this represents a smaller number in some total.
17:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I think the the most simple answer is that the Trump administration itself has thrown around 1.2 trillion dollars.
17:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I think at 1.2 trillion dollars and at 1.2 trillion dollars and at 1.
17:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Trump had said five points something trillion dollars.
17:47
[SPEAKER_01]: officials with authority are throwing around numbers and the trillions with a T, and I've tracked 400 billion, which is an astonishing amount, but it's not trillions.
17:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And even my 400 billion is an undercount for several reasons.
18:02
[SPEAKER_01]: First, there were many investments or ventures or grants that I tracked that are publicly reported, but the dollar amount is not publicly reported.
18:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can find those if they're not in my memo they're on the broader data set that's also on our website that you can play around with there's an interactive map you can go sector by sector so those have dollar amounts in in practice I just don't know what they are.
18:26
[SPEAKER_01]: In some cases, I know the Qataris were part of a, you know, let's say $500 million financing round for, you know, X startup.
18:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't know how much of that $500 million the Qataris are responsible for.
18:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, that is also marked as unreported or unknown.
18:45
[SPEAKER_01]: For some charitable donations, the Qataris are listed in annual reports as part of like a donor range.
18:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just used the lower limit of that range and it's possible that the Qataris gave the upper limit.
18:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was like 10,000 to 50,000, that's counted as 10,000 even though it might be 50.
19:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, the lobbying stuff is very interesting, so the way that the money on lobbying is reported is there's usually like a chart and it'll one of the columns will have the foreign principle, which would be, you know,
19:18
[SPEAKER_01]: the embassy of Qatar, and one of the columns will have the organization that actually paid that law being firm, you know, $20,000.
19:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes the person or entity that paid the money is another American firm via the embassy of Qatar, but the problem is that American firm has also registered
19:42
[SPEAKER_01]: money that was reported is coming directly from the guitar entity.
19:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It's possible that that methodology missed some money that was coming through pastors and wasn't going to be double counted in the end.
19:52
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a lot of methodology speak, but all that to say is the lobbying spend might actually be more than what I recorded.
19:59
[SPEAKER_01]: and then shareholder information in some cases I was able to find the number of shares that guitar is held in certain companies, obviously share value fluctuates, so I used the lowest possible share price that I could find to peg a dollar amount to those.
20:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's the one other part of this which I know you and I worked on and we really couldn't get anywhere and that is the hedge funds.
20:18
[SPEAKER_00]: and that's enormous, right?
20:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're probably talking about tens of billions of dollars, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars, that are socked away in these hedge funds.
20:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It's nothing illegal about it.
20:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, just to be very clear, it's, I mean, it's legal to do it.
20:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Foreign governments can do this.
20:33
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to attract foreign direct investment, but we couldn't get that down, right?
20:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And also, I should mention, there's probably money sloshing around that is either illegal or legal, but the cutaries are trying to cover up.
20:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And the example that I can give to substantiate that is several years ago, a watchdog started asking questions about cutary money that was going to Texas A&M University.
21:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Qataris ended up filing a lawsuit in an effort to keep that money hidden.
21:06
[SPEAKER_01]: They lost a judge order that the funding documents can be made public.
21:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And I believe it was about $500 million of previously undisclosed money that was revealed.
21:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So who knows how many other cases like that are happening where there's hundreds of millions of dollars that we're just not seeing.
21:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, now talk to us about the education space that really bothers me.
21:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I know we've heard about it in the past.
21:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I know there's more coming and you can maybe tease that a little bit because we've got colleagues working on the K through 12 space.
21:36
[SPEAKER_00]: But what did you see in the education space as you did this work?
21:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so in the education space, there's two pieces of the picture.
21:43
[SPEAKER_01]: There's higher and there's K-12.
21:45
[SPEAKER_01]: The higher ed picture is a bit more clear, just because there are disclosure requirements at the federal level.
21:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And the total, total coutari money reported to the Department of Education is $8.8 billion, which makes Qatar the top-fonder of U.S. universities.
22:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So passing China by about $2 billion,
22:09
[SPEAKER_01]: is crazy in and of itself, but even crazier when you think about the size disparity between the state of Qatar and the country of China.
22:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, it's a focus at home.
22:17
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a country that is half the size of the state of New Jersey 330,000 people and they are outspending China.
22:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, which is absolutely crazy.
22:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Granted, a lot of the money that the Criterri spent on universities is going to the half a dozen American schools that have satellite campuses in Doha.
22:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But there have been several reports, including from Congress, that have come out that lay out just exactly how that money is if not outright influencing, certainly impacting those schools ability to stick to their stated values and principles,
22:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's no free speech in Qatar, there's no freedom of the press.
22:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, Northwestern has its journalism school over there, which is quite interesting to think about.
23:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I think one naked example of influence at the university level is at Georgetown, actually.
23:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So Georgetown has a overseas campus in Doha.
23:15
[SPEAKER_01]: They've accepted.
23:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's about a billion dollars from Qatar since the early 2000s.
23:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Last year, George Town awarded Sheikh Amosa, the mother of the Qatari Amir.
23:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, sort of like the highest award that the President of George Town can give.
23:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And what's interesting about this is only several months prior to receiving the award, Sheikh Amosa publicly eulajai Ziyaki Asinwar, the mastermind of the October 7th massacre.
23:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And the president of Georgetown has actually asked about this in congressional testimony last year.
23:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And he sort of brushed aside, you know, the Hamas apology.
23:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like, well, that's not why we're giving her this award.
23:51
[SPEAKER_01]: We're giving her this award because of all the great things she's done to bring education to youth around the world.
23:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So in my mind, that's a clear example of how money is
24:04
[SPEAKER_01]: corrupting the values of institutions of higher education.
24:08
[SPEAKER_01]: The K-12 level, the money is a bit harder to find just because there aren't disclosure requirements, like there are in higher ed.
24:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And the dollar amount itself is much smaller.
24:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about like $8.5 million give or take.
24:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And, but there should be zero foreign dollars in K through 12.
24:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, just like, let's just say that, full stop.
24:30
[SPEAKER_00]: There should be no foreign dollars influencing our kids in public schools.
24:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
24:36
[SPEAKER_00]: That's insane.
24:37
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really, and folks, just so you know, there will be stuff coming out from FKD shortly on this.
24:42
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually have released little drips and drives of it at some point soon.
24:45
[SPEAKER_00]: We will be releasing all of it.
24:47
[SPEAKER_00]: But let me just ask you, there is sort of a delta when we look at higher ed, right?
24:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have that 8.8 billion, but we've seen reports from other shops.
24:56
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, folks in our field that are saying that it's like 13 billion or like 18 billion.
25:02
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we account for that delta of like these people coming out with these numbers?
25:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that we can't necessarily, I mean, we're not here to validate somebody else's numbers.
25:12
[SPEAKER_00]: But that seems enormous.
25:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Does that imply that maybe you have a lot of money that's not being reported?
25:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that is one piece of the picture.
25:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure there's money that's not being reported.
25:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It's actually interesting.
25:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been working on this project for a while over a year.
25:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was a change in administration as I was working on this project.
25:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So some of the government websites in the way the data was reported or how you could download it changed halfway through the project.
25:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And what's interesting about the education piece is that several months ago, the Trump administration launched a foreign funding dashboard, so now it's really easy to see all of the money.
25:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you download the bulk data, the spreadsheet, now there's a column that shows you not only when the money was given, but when the money was reported.
25:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And in some cases, I've caught like wild disparities between when the money was sent to the university, versus when the university actually reported that money.
26:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's certainly possible that money's not being reported.
26:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think there's anything that's necessarily nefarious behind that.
26:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's just bureaucratic oversight or like, there's other things to do when no one's holding them accountable.
26:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
26:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, when you think that like, you know, if you're taking money from a terror sponsor in the middle of like the October 7th war that's been going on now for two and a half years and all the stuff that's going on maybe be like yeah, you know what That's report this in 2027 because right now it doesn't really feel like a good time with the administration breathing down every university's neck you know, maybe let's just kick the can down the road We'll just say we forgot last year.
26:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, is that is that a possibility here?
26:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's certainly a possibility.
26:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I haven't, I don't have all the numbers and dates in my head, but I do think this has been going on since before October 7th.
26:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think there's a lot of catch-up being made, and I can see your point where maybe the reverse they're saying, wait, let's catch up on our, on our, you know, paperwork when all of this dies down.
27:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But, but I also think, like, there's, there's an argument to be made that, maybe not at the university level at this point given how much scrutiny,
27:09
[SPEAKER_01]: They've received over the last couple of years, but many Americans don't think about Qatar as a tear-sponsoring, you know, autocryping dirty corrupt.
27:20
[SPEAKER_00]: any bad adjective you want to assign state um... they think about it as a major non-native ally they you know needy or not even think about it at all so think about it's not on the back of Saudi Arabia this tiny little country that nobody's ever heard of and we keep talking about in people are scratching their heads going but why are you white white is this matter well i think you shown us today
27:40
[SPEAKER_00]: why it does matter you guys you can find Natalie's report at fdd.org it maps it out it is actually I mean you can read the report but you can also there's a dashboard and you can tinker with it and you can see where all the money score the way sector by sector industry by industry state by state dollar by dollar we have the receipts and yes it's a lowball
28:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Natalie, I want to first of all, thank you for the immense amount of work you did to build out this report.
28:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you've done a solid huge service.
28:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to thank you for being the occasional host at the FTD morning brief.
28:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to thank you for writing scripts for the FTD morning brief.
28:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to thank you for showing up today, early in the morning, at FTD's headquarters, to speak to us today on the FTD morning brief.
28:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you for having me,
28:31
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, really good stuff, guys.
28:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely read that report.
28:34
[SPEAKER_00]: It will knock your socks off.
28:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is it for your Friday episode.
28:38
[SPEAKER_00]: This week has been another really long year.
28:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So while you rest and recharge and while I do the same, a few things I would wholeheartedly recommend.
28:46
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to impress your friends with your geopolitical insights at your weekend gatherings, you know where to find us at pd.org.
28:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're gonna do them scroll, then scroll responsibly by visiting our highly informative social media channels.
28:59
[SPEAKER_00]: and a reminder that Katari Foreign Investment is outpacing us here by, you know, $400 billion.
29:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So we need more ammo to keep up.
29:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Please head on over to ftd.org slash invest to make a highly appreciated, highly taxiductible donation.
29:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Have a great weekend folks.
29:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Jonathan Shansler signing off for FTD.