Murphy Praises American Universities in Qatar Weeks After Calling Qatari Jet a ‘$400 Million Bribe’

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) used a weekend visit to Doha to praise the presence of American universities in Qatar’s Education City, calling them an important vehicle for projecting U.S. values in the Middle East — a message that lands awkwardly against his own recent denunciation of Qatari influence in Washington.

According to reporting from The Daily Wire, Murphy met with Sheikha Hind Al Thani, vice chairperson of the Qatar Foundation, which bankrolls the Education City complex, and posted about the encounter on X.

“The presence of American universities in Qatar is an important way for the United States to promote U.S. values in the Middle East and create more lasting people-to-people connections,” Murphy wrote. “I was glad to visit with Sheikha Hind Al Thani in Doha’s Education City.”

A Gulf trip billed as a war-focused mission

Murphy, who sits on both the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee, framed the trip ahead of time as a chance to examine the conflicts roiling the region and reconsider Washington’s posture toward the Gulf states.

He described the Gulf nations as “important partners, but imperfect partners” and said the visit would give him room to “think about what our approach should be to the Gulf moving forward.” The Education City stop was not the only item on his itinerary, but it produced the most quotable takeaway.

The praise stands out because of Murphy’s posture toward Qatar just a few months earlier. In July, he hammered President Donald Trump over his acceptance of a luxury jet from the Qatari government, describing it as a “$400 million bribe from a foreign government.” The two positions are not strictly contradictory — a senator can distrust a gift to a president while championing academic partnerships — but the contrast is stark enough that critics are likely to seize on it.

Education City’s complicated footprint

Education City is a sprawling campus district in Doha hosting branches of universities from several countries. Among the American institutions with a presence there: Georgetown, Texas A&M, Virginia Commonwealth University, Weill Cornell Medicine, Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern.

Those partnerships have drawn congressional scrutiny on multiple fronts.

At a May 2024 hearing, Northwestern’s then-president testified that he was “disturbed” by the relationship between the school’s Qatar campus and Al Jazeera, the state-funded Qatari broadcaster. Texas A&M’s program, which focused on engineering and energy degrees, was framed around advancing “the development goals of the State of Qatar and the region,” and the university’s board voted in February 2024 to shut the campus down. The Texas Public Policy Foundation has since argued the program is being absorbed by Hamad Bin Khalifa University, another Education City institution.

Meanwhile, Qatar Foundation International, which funded educational programming inside the United States, has announced it has wrapped up operations.

Murphy’s ties to Qatar extend beyond the weekend visit. His former chief of staff has worked as a registered foreign agent for the country. And Hamad Al Muftah, deputy chief of mission at the Qatari embassy in Washington, offered a warm assessment of the senator: “Senator Murphy has been an honest and a reliable ally of Qatar, consistently supporting closer U.S.–Qatar ties and greater cooperation on shared strategic interests.”

The DETERRENT Act looms over the HELP Committee

The timing of Murphy’s Education City tour is notable for another reason. Lawmakers are weighing the DETERRENT Act, legislation that would tighten disclosure requirements for universities that accept foreign money. The bill has already cleared the House and now sits in the HELP Committee — Murphy’s committee.

Several universities have lined up against the measure, including Yale. Those same institutions rank among Murphy’s top donors, a confluence that critics of foreign academic funding are likely to flag as the bill moves through the panel.

For now, Murphy’s public position is that the campuses are an asset. Whether that view survives the committee fight over disclosure rules is a question that will be answered in the months ahead.

Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrat-who-bashed-trump-over-qatar-jet-praises-u-s-university-ties-in-doha