Follow the Money: How the Muslim Brotherhood Bought a Seat in America's Schools | With Dr. Charles Asher Small
In 2012, Dr. Charles Asher Small pulled an all-nighter at Stanford, started googling a Yale administrator, and stumbled onto a money trail that became one of the most consequential antisemitism research projects in the West. The founder of ISGAP — which he launched in 2003 alongside Elie Wiesel — joins Ben Chertoff to lay out what he found: an estimated $100 billion in undisclosed Qatari money flowing into American universities, $10 billion to Cornell, $1.3 billion to Texas A&M, a K-12 curriculum in 8,000 American classrooms that erased Israel from the map, and a campus-to-City-Hall pipeline that runs all the way to the mayor of New York. We also press him on the hardest question: where the documented paper trail ends and connect-the-dots begins.
- ISGAP: https://isgap.org — publications free to the public.
- "Follow the Money" project — Qatar / Muslim Brotherhood university funding research.
- DETERRENT Act — federal bill (passed the House, before the Senate) lowering the foreign-gift disclosure threshold from $250K to $50K.
- New (May 2026) ISGAP report — "Institutional Capture: Qatar Foundation International": https://isgap.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/QFI-US-Report.pdf — published the day after this taping; documents $65.3M across 220 K-12/education programs (2009–2025).
- (00:00) - — Cold open:** "$10 billion to Cornell" — the white-sheets vs. keffiyehs analogy.
- (00:47) - — Who is Charles Small & what is ISGAP:** 23 years tracing Qatar's money into American universities.
- (01:16) - — The 2012 discovery:** A Yale administrator, a Stanford all-nighter, and the thread that became "Follow the Money."
- (03:26) - — 2003 & Elie Wiesel:** Co-founding ISGAP at the UN — "a time of a great emergency."
- (05:14) - — Mamdani, SJP & what the Muslim Brotherhood actually is:** From a Bowdoin chapter to City Hall; the Protocols at the core of the ideology.
- (08:25) - — Why the West keeps missing it:** The "failure of imagination" and the 50-year strategic goal.
- (11:17) - — Inside "Follow the Money":** $3 billion → $18 billion → $100 billion; the Qatar–Muslim Brotherhood oath.
- (16:59) - — How the research works:** Texas A&M's $1.3B contract, Georgetown, and $10B to Cornell — all open-source.
- (19:29) - — Columbia reported $0:** The disclosure laws on the books since WWII that no one enforces.
- (22:26) - — The 300% statistic:** Soft power, correlation vs. causation, and a university's "sacred responsibility."
- (26:23) - — The DETERRENT Act:** Where the federal investigations stand now.
- (28:15) - — K-12 capture:** Brown's "Choices" curriculum in 8,000+ American classrooms.
- (31:19) - — How campus ideas filter into society:** Edward Said, and the chilling parallel to the 19th-century academy.
- (33:59) - — The Columbia teach-in, 10 days after October 7:** When gender-studies professors called the massacre "justified."
- (38:18) - — The Red-Green coalition & Judith Butler:** Why the radical left and Islamists converge.
- (43:35) - — Soft power, silence & the Iran test:** The pogrom that the campus left wouldn't condemn.
- (47:41) - — Where else the money lands:** Al Jazeera, the Qatar–CNN deal, Northwestern, social media.
- (49:13) - — JVP, SJP & Neville Singham's network:** Following the money behind "Jewish Voice for Peace."
- (51:41) - — Mamdani:** "Of course he knows what he's doing."
- (55:40) - — Allies in the Arab world & the three centers of the Brotherhood:** Qatar (money), Turkey (command), London (laundering).
- (57:13) - — How do you fight an idea?:** Lessons from defeating communism and fascism.
- (01:00:43) - — What's next for ISGAP:** New reports on Canada, the UK, South Africa — and the Muslim Brotherhood terror designation.
- (01:03:37) - — Where to find ISGAP's work.**
- (01:04:10) - — Ben's close:** "The emergency didn't arrive by accident."
