Foreign policy
Murphy was one of the first members of Congress to come out in opposition to US support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen, which was launched in 2015. In a speech on January 29, 2016, he recommended that the US stop supporting this campaign and suspend military sales to Saudi Arabia until it received assurances that the war would not distract from Saudi efforts against al-Qaeda and ISIS and Saudi Arabia reduced its worldwide support of Wahhabism.
Murphy is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the ranking Democratic member of the subcommittee on the Middle East and Counter-terrorism. In June 8, 2015, edition of Foreign Affairs, Murphy co-authored "Principles for a Progressive Foreign Policy", proposing a framework for a Democratic foreign policy strategy.
In November 2017, Murphy accused the United States of complicity in the war crimes committed in Yemen by the Saudi-led military coalition and in Yemen's humanitarian crisis, saying: "Thousands and thousands inside Yemen today are dying....This horror is caused in part by our decision to facilitate a bombing campaign that is murdering children and to endorse a Saudi strategy inside Yemen that is deliberately using disease and starvation and the withdrawal of humanitarian support as a tactic." In October 2018, Murphy wrote that if the reports of Jamal Khashoggi's murder were true, "it should represent a fundamental break" in Saudi Arabia–United States relations. Murphy, Bernie Sanders, and Mike Lee advanced a vote to co-sponsor a resolution that would require the President to "withdraw troops in or "affecting" Yemen within 30 days unless they are fighting al Qaeda. In February 2019, Murphy was one of seven senators to reintroduce legislation requiring sanctions on Saudi officials involved in Khashoggi's murder and seeking to address support for the Yemen civil war by prohibiting some weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and U.S. military refueling of Saudi coalition planes.
Murphy is one of the Senate's most vociferous critics of Russia. Murphy holds that Russia will remain a permanent, persistent threat to the United States and its security interests regardless of the incumbent regime in the country. At a 2019 event at the Atlantic Council, Murphy professed the need for NATO allies to understand that the US has been always "far behind Russia in understanding our vulnerabilities". At the same event, Murphy echoed the sentiments of Lithuanian and Georgian foreign ministers that Russia's imperialist nature will always put it at odds with the US and that little will change until Russia as a "captive state of aggregate territories" changes its nature.
In March 2016, Murphy and Republican Senator Rob Portman co-authored the bipartisan Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act. Congressman Adam Kinzinger introduced the House version of the bill. After the 2016 U.S. presidential election, worries grew that propaganda spread and organized by the Russian government swayed the election's outcome, and members of Congress took action to safeguard the national security of the United States by advancing legislation to monitor propaganda from external threats. On November 30, 2016, legislators approved a measure within the National Defense Authorization Act to ask the U.S. State Department to take action against foreign propaganda through an interagency panel. The legislation authorized funding of $160 million over two years. The initiative was developed through the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act.
In September 2016, in advance of UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, Murphy signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging President Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel.
In July 2017, Murphy voted in favor of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that placed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea.
In December 2017, Murphy criticized President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, saying, "It needs to be done at the right time and in the right manner."
In December 2018, Trump ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. Murphy said: "I support withdrawing troops, but we must also rejoin a diplomatic process that the Trump administration has left to other powers, and we need a surge in humanitarian relief. That's the only way we can protect the Syrian people against a Turkish incursion or regime reprisals.
In April 2019, Murphy was one of 34 senators to sign a letter to President Trump encouraging him "to listen to members of your own Administration and reverse a decision that will damage our national security and aggravate conditions inside Central America", asserting that Trump had "consistently expressed a flawed understanding of U.S. foreign assistance" since becoming president and that he was "personally undermining efforts to promote U.S. national security and economic prosperity" by preventing the use of Fiscal Year 2018 national security funding. The senators argued that foreign assistance to Central American countries created less migration to the U.S. by helping to improve conditions in those countries.
In January 2020, Murphy wrote to FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, urging the FBI to "investigate the allegations" that Saudi Arabia "illegally compromised and stole personal data" from Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Washington Post, as part of a possible effort to "influence, if not silence, the Washington Post's reporting on Saudi Arabia".
In May 2020, Murphy voiced his opposition to Israel's plan to annex parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
In January 2024, Murphy voted against a resolution proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders to apply the human rights provisions of the Foreign Assistance Act to U.S. aid to Israel's military. The proposal was defeated, 72 to 11. On February 7, 2024, Murphy said he would support an amendment requiring weapons sold internationally to be used in compliance with U.S. law, international humanitarian law, and the laws of armed conflict.
In March 2024, Murphy was one of 19 Democratic senators to sign a letter to the Biden administration urging the U.S. to recognize a "nonmilitarized" Palestinian state after the Gaza war.
In March 2025, Murphy said, "The White House has become an arm of the Kremlin."
In April 2025, Murphy voted for a pair of resolutions, proposed by Sanders, to cancel the Trump's administration's sales of $8.8 billion in bombs and other munitions to Israel. The proposals were defeated, 82 to 15.
In June 2025, after Trump made remarks about bombing Iranian nuclear facilities, Murphy told reporters, "It appears that we have only delayed Iran's nuclear program by a few months. The president's assertions that we have dismantled the program are false. Knowledge cannot be eradicated through bombing."
Murphy has criticized the Trump administration's handling of the 2026 Iran war, calling its strategy "incoherent", "bungled", and "mismanaged". He also argued that the administration had bypassed Congress in initiating military action against Iran and introduced a War Powers Resolution aimed at limiting U.S. involvement in unauthorized hostilities against Iran. Murphy also linked the conflict to rising fuel prices and broader economic pressures in the United States.
Following reports of a U.S.–Iran memorandum of understanding in June 2026, Murphy questioned its legitimacy, saying he had not been briefed on its contents and expressing uncertainty about whether it formally existed. He called the reported agreement favorable to Iran and "essentially a surrender", while criticizing the lack of transparency toward Congress.
