HOW QATAR BOUGHT AMERICA

Keeping It Real: Conversations with Jillian Michaels

Jillian Michaels

Self-improvement, Health & Fitness, Society & Culture, Nutrition, Education

4.4 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 4 January 2026

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A tiny country with unlimited money.A massive footprint inside U.S. politics, media, universities, and national security.And almost no public accountability. Investigative journalist Frannie Block (The Free Press) joins me to expose how Qatar quietly became one of the most powerful foreign players inside the United States — outspending nearly every other country outside of Saudi Arabia to shape narratives, policy, and power from the inside out. We break down how billions of dollars flow through universities, think tanks, lobbying firms, media outlets, journalists and influencers, and former U.S. officials, all while flying under the radar of the American public. We cover:• How Qatar outspent every other foreign nation to buy influence in the U.S.• Why American universities became a key pipeline for foreign power• How lobbying, PR firms, and “cultural exchange” mask political influence• The FARA loopholes that make it all legal• Why politicians from both parties stay silent• How media narratives are shaped — and who benefits• Why this would be a national scandal if China or Russia did it This episode connects the dots between money, power, ideology, and silence — and asks the uncomfortable question: Who are the main perpetrators, how are they doing it, AND WHY? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	A country smaller than Connecticut, with a population smaller than Chicago, has spent decades buying influence in the United States and not with tanks or missiles, but with endowments, media partnerships, lobbying firms, educational initiatives.
0:17.0	They fund American universities. They sponsor curriculum. They host journalists and politicians
0:23.2	at luxury conferences. They operate the most powerful media outlet in the Arab world. And at the same time,
0:30.5	they've harbored extremist leaders, funded radical movements, and played both sides of America's wars in the
0:37.2	Middle East.
0:38.3	Now, if China were doing this, we would call it infiltration.
0:40.3	If Russia were doing it, it would be called propaganda.
0:43.3	But when Qatar does it, it's called cultural exchange.
0:47.3	Joining me today is investigative journalist Franny Block from the Free Press,
0:52.3	who's been on the forefront of exposing
0:54.5	who guitar is influencing in America? How, why, and at what cost? Here we go.
1:04.5	Keeping it real with Jillian Michaels. This one is a bit of a mindbender.
1:12.4	I wasn't paying attention to this at all until Trump got a half a billion dollar plane.
1:21.1	And I thought, oh, God, you know, the optics of this are bad.
1:25.5	And he's like, I'm not keeping it.
1:28.3	It's going in the library, but everybody started talking about Qatar.
1:32.3	And I subscribed to the free press.
1:34.3	I got this article in my inbox, how Qatar bought America.
1:39.3	And I'd never heard anything like what I read in that article before.
1:45.1	And it was deeply alarming.
1:46.6	And I think it was so alarming that it just tucked it in the back of my head because I thought,
1:50.8	like, I don't even know how to talk about this.
	...

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