Warning: This is a rush transcript generated automatically and may contain errors.
Asbed Bedrossian: Hello, everyone.
Asbed Bedrossian: The U.S. midterm elections are upon us. A week from today, we are recording on Tuesday, October 27, and all across this land, we have Senate and Congressional office seekers, of whom have done right for their Armenian constituents, and some who have not. The ANCA, the Armenian National Committee of America, ranks all of these national office seekers, and they’re assigned a grade from A-plus to F. For this Conversations on Groong, we have with us Aram Hamparian, who is the Executive Director of the ANCA in Washington, D.C., and we’re going to go over who’s been very, very good and who’s been very, very bad.
Aram Hamparian, welcome back to the Groong podcast.
Aram Suren Hamparian: I’m very glad to be here.
Hovik Manucharyan: Welcome, Aram. I am truly honored every time I speak with you. You are a bulwark of our community, and every time I visit Washington, D.C., I love, which I haven’t been doing that often recently, I love meeting with you and your other half, the dynamic duo, I would say, give our regards to Yeghsapet as well. we have a lot to discuss but actually i want to digress a little bit you know because for those who are not uh watching this right now who are only listening uh
Hovik Manucharyan: Aram Hamparian has this beautiful big flag behind him. Aram, can you tell us the story of that flag
Aram Suren Hamparian: this flag behind me is part of my family’s story, part of the American story. It was brought back from the Second World War by my father. It’s got 48 stars, not 50, because at the time Hawaii and Alaska were not yet states. I think my dad was pretty low on the Navy totem pole, but he was high enough to ask his captain, you know, can I bring one of the flags that flew above the ship back to the States?
And it’s been in our family ever since. We’re very proud of that. He was the child of immigrants. His folks had come over during the time of the genocide.
My kids now are now the fourth generation growing up in America. One of the proudest things for me is that they actually speak Armenian far better than I do. So this is part of our Armenian-American story. And there are always those who don’t like a particular position that we take, whether it’s justice for the genocide or the indigenous rights of the people of Artsakh or Armenian sovereignty or the return of our hostages.
You pick the issues. Someone’s going to take issue with it. And instead of addressing the merits of our argument, they’ll make personal attacks. Very often, I guess the Latin term is ad hominem, against the person instead of against the argument.
And they’ll say that you’re on this side or that side, to which we confess, yeah, we do take a side. It’s not East or West. It’s not a Democrat or a Republican. It’s the Armenian-American side. in that we’re citizens of the country, we pay our taxes, we serve in the military, we contribute in every possible way you can imagine to this great nation.
And guess what? Along the way, we have developed a voice and we deliver that voice in Washington without fear or favor.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah, and this actually plays well into our topics today because, election, we, the ANCA, prepares our community for the issues that are critical to the Armenian community, of course. And, you know, they say that every election, every coming election is the most important one of our lives. I think I would agree with that, especially with this one, probably also with the next one. But can you tell us what is at stake these coming elections? what would you identify as the most important issues that are going to be of the elections next week
Aram Suren Hamparian: Sure. I think what will be on the ballot for Armenian-Americans is the future of U.S. engagement in this peace process . I’m going to put peace process in quotes. We may, you know, on the one hand, if the incumbent party in the House, Senate, and the White House prevails, just continue down the road of the normalization of genocide, the normalization of ethnic cleansing , and sort of locking it in.
I would say normalization slash consolidation of crimes committed against the Armenian nation. And if there are changes in Congress, I think we’ll see more opportunities to address the key requirements of a lasting peace. So the return of hostages, the return of refugees, the removal of Azeri occupation forces from Armenian sovereign territory, territory, the protection of our churches, sanctions against Azerbaijani leaders, more broadly accountability for Azerbaijan, and security for Armenia. Those are the agenda items we’re going to push.
Without necessarily editorializing on either party, it’s very fair to say that when government is united, right, when our separation powers, our checks and balance system doesn’t function as robustly as it should. So what we’ve seen in recent weeks and months has been the majorities in the House and Senate being largely deferential to the White House. And they may have their views. We certainly do have our friends on the Republican side.
But by and large, that party has been muted on the issues that Armenian American voters care about. Primarily, I think, out of a deference to the White House. They figure President Trump has got it covered. You know, he is deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize or something.
So let’s not get in the way. as a result, not been willing to raise the banner of the hostages or the refugees or the churches, things of that nature. On the other side of the equation are Democrats who actually represent many parts of the country where Armenian Americans live and as a result are more responsive because we are many of their voters and they will have a greater appetite to challenge or to sort of check and balance the executive branch policy. So, for example, we’ve seen Democrats now, I think Senator Schatz and Senator Whitehouse, both raised privacy concerns related to the TRIPP corridor.
We can go into that later, but that type of oversight, that type of scrutiny is only a good thing. Just having one administration with one party behind it, with a very narrow band of interlocutors, you know, people from Witkoff to Sullivan and others, this very narrow band of people running our foreign policy in many ways for private profit without meaningful oversight. That’s not a healthy environment for us. So we’re looking for, you know, scrutiny, oversight, and a robust system of checks and balances.
Asbed Bedrossian: Aram, in the ANCA’s traditional grading of congressional office seekers,
Asbed Bedrossian: this year there are 12 Fs, and that’s not F for fantastic, it’s F for fail. As we head into these 2026 U.S. midterm elections, what’s the general reason why these people are simply, apparently insensitive to their Armenian constituents?
Aram Suren Hamparian: Sure. To earn an F, you need not simply be indifferent to our issues or even opposed to our issues. You need to actually take the lead in trying to take inimical actions against the things that we care about as a community. So, for example, there was a vote in the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
It was a 44 to 7 vote, but seven members of Congress voted against the release of Armenian hostages, and that’s an F.
Asbed Bedrossian: Amazing.
Aram Suren Hamparian: There are others who co-sponsored legislation, well, we’ll talk about Congresswoman Luna in a second, but by Congresswoman Luna, to repeal Section 907, which is a restriction on U.S. aid to Azerbaijan. So these are people who were just indifferent, didn’t just agree with, let’s say, the administration’s policy, but actually got out front to act in ways that hurt our
Asbed Bedrossian: Mm-hmm. I see.
Aram Suren Hamparian: community.
Asbed Bedrossian: So you’re saying it actually takes some effort to earn a grade F. Right. So let’s…
Hovik Manucharyan: Sorry, I have a very quick question. Asbed, you mentioned there are 12 Fs. Are these 12 that are up for right now, or 12 out of the total Congress?
Aram Suren Hamparian: Well, every member of the House is up for re-election, and one-third of the Senate. I don’t think we have any sort of targets in the Senate, but we have a number of targets in the House, some of whom are not returning. And one,
Asbed Bedrossian: Hmm.
Aram Suren Hamparian: for example, would be Steve Cohen, a co-chair of the Armenian Caucus.
Asbed Bedrossian: So for today, Aram, we would like to go through a bunch of these Fs and see why they have actually failed, their Armenian communities.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah, yeah, I think it’s really important to, you know, when there are good things to be said, we need to praise and we need to work with our representatives and senators. But I think in some cases, we have to also talk about these people who are actually being, you know, showing inimical, you know, actions towards the Armenian community. So let’s start with the first one, John Sununu from New Hampshire.
Aram Suren Hamparian: Hmm.
Hovik Manucharyan: I mean, he used to be a former senator, and he’s now trying to come back into Congress, right? Can you tell us more about why he earned an F in your report card?
Aram Suren Hamparian: Sure. The New Hampshire race is probably the best example this cycle of a really bad guy running against a really good guy. So John Sununu, a former senator from New Hampshire, lost his last election, but now he’s trying to come back. His financial disclosure forms demonstrate something that his brother and his dad also have demonstrated, which is their major investors in something called Anglo Asian Mining, which has rights to mine in ethnically cleansed Artsakh. rights to mine in ethnically cleansed Artsakh .
And they were only able to realize profits on those rights after the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh. They knew that very well. They made the investment essentially banking on a genocide of the indigenous population. He’s been asked to sell those stocks, to apologize for their purchase, to explain why it is that he’s profiting off genocide.
He’s done none of those things. He has earned an F. If there was a worse grade than F, he would have that grade.
Asbed Bedrossian: Ta.
Aram Suren Hamparian: good news is he’s running against Chris Pappas, Congressman, incoming Congressman Chris Pappas from New Hampshire, who has been a great friend of ours for many years. We just met with him recently in Washington. We’ve met with him in New Hampshire as well. He’s on board all of the issues that we care about.
And this is really a very bright red line up in New Hampshire. We have two things going for us. Number one is that there’s about 4000 Armenians in New Hampshire. the greater Boston suburbs almost at times. And on top of that, we have found that New Hampshire voters are very receptive to the idea that John Sununu has traded on his influence to profit.
So this, what we talk about, the Anglo Asian Mining, it fits right into people’s understanding of Sununu. In fact, the Pappas campaign has sent out multiple email appeals this year highlighting the fact that Sununu has profited from this mining operation within Azerbaijan. So that is like sort of our premier race. Definitely follow the results on Election Day.
Asbed Bedrossian: All right, next we have Arizona Republican Abe Hamadeh, and I will take a special note of this guy. He’s of Syrian origin, and I mentioned that because, you know, there are a lot of Armenians from Syria, from Lebanon, so there should be some level of empathy. Now, Hamadeh has actually met with Armenian Ambassador Narek Mkrtchyan, Vardan Arabyan, who’s the consul, and back in August he went to Yerevan and met with Pashinyan and Ararat Mirzoyan. He is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and serves as a diplomatic mediator for the TRIPP project.
How is it that this guy is getting a F?
Aram Suren Hamparian: Well, because he is out to undermine all the requirements of a just and lasting peace, and that includes Section 907. He has co-sponsored legislation introduced by Congresswoman Luna of Florida to get rid of Section 907, to say not that it should be waived in certain circumstances, but that there should be no restrictions, that Azerbaijan should be given a free pass for its actions past and present. And that alone would do that. But then add to that his commentary, his diplomacy, whatever you want to call it, in support of a peace agreement that places none of that essentially rewards Azerbaijan and imposes all its risks on the Armenian side.
You know, again, these people call it peace, but it’s really just the consolidation of ethnic cleansing. And he’s been out front. He’s not been a quiet advocate of the administration’s policy, but he’s been a very active advocate of this normalization of genocide.
Asbed Bedrossian: Is he angling for a position in the State Department?
Aram Suren Hamparian: Possibly. Yeah, his auditions are going very well.
Asbed Bedrossian: Okay. Yeah, I can see.
Hovik Manucharyan: Okay, let’s go to Florida. We have two special mentions in Florida, two Fs from Florida, unfortunately. Let’s talk about Randy Fine, Aram. Many of our listeners and viewers already know about his record, and especially his shameful characterization of Armenians.
But go ahead and tell us more.
Aram Suren Hamparian: Sure.
Hovik Manucharyan: What has he done in order to earn F?
Aram Suren Hamparian: Okay, Fine has basically committed two unforgivable sins, in our view. Number one, he co-sponsored legislation to repeal Section 907, to eliminate, to strike all restrictions on U.S. aid, military arms and aid to Azerbaijan. That earns an F on its own. Second, during his primary race, he gratuitously said Armenians should not be allowed to run for Congress.
This, of course, goes against the fact that we have had Armenians in Congress, Americans of Armenian heritage in Congress. And that kind of sort of blanket, you know, smear or disparagement of Armenians just crosses our red line. And we feel like he really there are a range of other reasons why a lot of people don’t like Randy Fine. And those are worth discussing.
But as far as Armenians are concerned, it’s his boosting U.S. aid to Azerbaijan and his disparagement of Armenian-Americans.
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah, that’s flat-out racist.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: So, Florida Republican Anna Paulina Luna.
Aram Suren Hamparian: Yes, she is the author of legislation this past cycle that would eliminate the Section 907 restriction on aid to Azerbaijan. Again, there are members of Congress who think that that law should be waived or suspended, and they have their reasons. We disagree with them, but that’s kind of like, I guess, in their view, a middle ground approach to this issue.
She went all the way to the extreme and said not that Azerbaijan’s a good actor or that this law should be suspended because of some of their interests, but saying that the entire legacy of U.S. scrutiny of Azerbaijan needs to be struck down and that the aid arms should flow freely to Baku, a very oil rich country that neither needs nor deserves U.S. aid. And so she’s way out front on cheerleading Azerbaijan, making sure that they get our tax dollars. And for that reason, we gave her an F.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah, I mean, that is one level above despicable, in my opinion, because, I mean, it’s one thing to say, okay, well, you know, there should be business trade, but this is essentially military aid to Azerbaijan after genocide, after ethnic cleansing of 150,000 Armenians, and here we have a US congresswoman actually saying that the country committing genocide should be rewarded I mean this is a level of indecency that deserves to be memorialized I think alright let’s
Aram Suren Hamparian: I would say that there’s some good news and bad news. The bad news is that these members are in Congress. The good news is that it’s consistently around 5 or 10. And this goes back to that vote in the Foreign Affairs Committee.
It goes back to the co-sponsorship on the Luna bill to strike 907. There is a small colony off in the corner of Congress. But we need to keep a careful eye on them and where we can help defeat them. We have to defeat them.
Hovik Manucharyan: All right, let’s move to South Carolina. What can you tell us about Joe Wilson?
Aram Suren Hamparian: Joe Wilson is a very senior member of the House who has, from very early in his congressional tenure, been very hostile to Armenian-Americans. There was a short while when he first got sworn in where he was open to a dialogue with Armenian-Americans. But since then, he has shut that down and essentially been a mouthpiece for Baku. I don’t know that he says much on the South Caucasus .
That cannot also be said by Ilham Aliyev . For someone from South Carolina, for someone who professes to be a defender of religious freedom and persecuted minorities, persecuted Christians, he’s done just the opposite. He has been a party to the persecution of Armenians, and that’s really shameful. And we look forward to his early retirement from Congress.
Asbed Bedrossian: How about Tennessee Democrat Stephen Cohen?
Aram Suren Hamparian: Okay, that’s a good news story. Steve Cohen is one of the most hostile members of Congress to Armenian-Americans. He famously threw an Armenian-American reporter out of his house, physically threw him out of his house early on in his career. If you want, you can look it up on YouTube.
It’s pretty entertaining and pretty angry on his part. But he doubled down early on on being very pro-Turkish, very pro-Azeri. And what happened this cycle is interesting. He became the victim of this national trend toward redistricting.
And the Tennessee state legislature, historically African-American, held seat in the Memphis area. And he was facing, he’s not African-American, but he was facing an African-American, Justin J. Pearson, a very strong candidate, in a hotly contested Democratic primary. And it looked like Justin Pearson might defeat him in the primary.
But while that process was playing out, the Tennessee state legislature redistricted the entire state to make it very hard for the Memphis-based seat to be held by an African-American. the tea leaves. Steve Cohen just retired from Congress. He said he would not run for re-election. So he is thankfully departing.
His last days in the House will be next, the first few days of January. It looks like if the Tennessee redistricting plays out the way its authors want, that seat will be held by a Republican. But the good news is that Steve Cohen will be leaving.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out, but as they say, all right,
Aram Suren Hamparian: Yeah.
Hovik Manucharyan: let’s go to Texas where we also have more Fs. Let’s start with Pete Sessions, Aram.
Aram Suren Hamparian: Yeah, he has been in Congress. I think he left for a while. He’s come back now. He has just been out front on every anti-Armenian initiative you can imagine.
And that includes pro-Turkish anti-Armenian initiatives and pro-Azeri anti-Armenian initiatives. He just doesn’t miss a trick. And he’s not been like necessarily the leader on these, but he’s been, you know, second in line whenever there’s something hostile to the Armenians, whether that’s the Armenian genocide or Artsakh or Azerbaijani accountability. So he’s a solid F, maybe not the worst of the worst, but definitely a solid F.
Asbed Bedrossian: How about Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar?
Aram Suren Hamparian: Okay, he is the worst of the worst. And this is, okay, let’s tell the Henry Cuellar story. He’s a longstanding border Democrat, right? Typically more toward the middle as opposed to the left of the Democratic Party.
And a couple of years back, the FBI raided his house and raided his office for information related to allegations of accepting bribes from Azerbaijan. Based on those raids and other information, including wiretaps, including the federal government reading his text messages, they indicted him. The federal government indicted him. I’ve read the 50, I think, 54 page indictment and accused him of accepting something like six hundred thousand dollars in bribes from Azerbaijan and also from some Mexican cartel.
And the indictment reveals, and this is like kind of significant, I think, to the folks watching, right, that he sought at the request of the Azerbaijani ambassador at the time, who was identified as foreign diplomat number one, but it was clearly a guy named Elin Suleymanov, the Azerbaijani ambassador at the time. The request came in to torpedo amendments that we were working on to support the humanitarian demining of Artsakh. Artsakh is a war-torn area. Farmers and kids, moms, would get blown up all the time because their field or their farm or their playground would have mines in them.
And we were working to see the U.S. Congress support humanitarian efforts just for the interior, not the borders, just the interior, to make it safer for families. And he offered counter-amendments. He sought to undermine our amendment. in some regards and not successful in others.
The program did continue despite his efforts, but the indictment revealed that this guy was like all in at the request of the Azerbaijani government to stop humanitarian demining in Artsakh. He got indicted for that, went through the courts. Eventually, he was pardoned by President Trump, which is a strange thing because Trump is a Republican and he’s a Democrat. But we hope that the voters of his district will not pardon him.
And let me say that we have found a very receptive audience. We have done mailings and outreach and online work with the Christian, the faith community in South Texas, in Laredo, a lot of Catholic voters down there who do not appreciate their member of Congress betraying his oath, betraying his country, and also betraying Armenian Christians. So we made a special offer.
While we don’t have a lot of voters in South Texas, we do have a lot of folks who care a lot about persecuted Christians. focus is to educate voters down there to get everyone, as many voters as possible, to go to the polls next Tuesday knowledgeable about how he betrayed persecuted Christians.
Asbed Bedrossian: And is it fair to say that it was not at the request of Azerbaijan? It was actually in the pay of Azerbaijan. He was a paid operative.
Aram Suren Hamparian: That’s right. That’s right.
Asbed Bedrossian: Okay.
Aram Suren Hamparian: Yeah. I mean, it’s shocking that he’s still in Congress. It’s—I’m not—President Trump has never really explained why he pardoned him. I think he expressed regret for having pardoned him.
But the voters should not pardon him.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah. I mean, this brings up another case, I guess, with Eric Adams, but yeah, this is just, I think, you know, it’s, there are some forces working on all these, you know, issues. Anyway, I’ll take that out, but yeah.
Aram Suren Hamparian: Yeah. I’d like to touch on that just a second. There is a ceiling of sorts, what’s called a corruption ceiling of sorts, that’s set on many Armenian issues, right? So in the case of Mayor Adams, he was on the pay of Turkey.
He had accepted gifts from Turkey. I don’t even think he denied having taken illegal gifts from Turkey. And he’s spoken in praise of Azerbaijan level of corruption here. And that set a ceiling to the point where even in his indictments, there was a discussion of how he would not recognize April 24th because, right?
So that’s some false ceiling established by corruption. When that ceiling is broken, when we don’t have that ceiling, you see statements like Mayor Mamdani, right, who gave like a really robust statement on the Armenian genocide and Artsakh because a mayor of New York, left or right, it doesn’t really matter, who’s not somehow in the pay of these enemies of ours are actually neighbors of ours. And they are familiar with our cause and sympathetic to our situation and want to be helpful to us.
And that’s, I think, wherever artificial hands, wherever foreign hands from U.S. policy on Armenian issues, we find that the politicians are actually very, very friendly.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah, yeah.
Hovik Manucharyan: Going back to Cuellar, can you tell us who’s running against him? Are there any notable candidates?
Aram Suren Hamparian: Absolutely. Actually, a very decent man, Judge Tano Tijerina. Judge Tano is a very strong candidate, running a very strong campaign. He has visited with us in Washington, D.C., along with his campaign team.
We have our regular contact with him and his advisors, doing everything that we can to support him. We are also separately talking to voters, educating them on Cuellar’s record, and then also highlighting the fact that Judge Tano has been a good friend of persecuted Christians.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah, we have a lot of F-listers today, but I think some deserve mention, others probably just gloss over. So I’m going to mention three that we probably won’t cover in detail, and Aram, you can tell us anything you want about these three.
Hovik Manucharyan: From Utah, we have Celeste Maloy, and then Burgess Owens, both Republicans, and also from Wisconsin, Derrick Van Orden. What can you tell us about them?
Aram Suren Hamparian: They all jumped on board Congresswoman Luna’s bill against Section 907, and very likely because either they’ve been reached out to by the Azerbaijani government or maybe Luna herself just asked as a favor maybe to trade a co-sponsorship for one of their pieces of legislation. But they should have known better. We have reached out to all of them and asked them to withdraw their co-sponsorship. They have not done so.
So they put themselves on the wrong side of the issue and as a result got F grades from us.
Aram Suren Hamparian: Thank you.
Asbed Bedrossian: Aram, so that’s our hall of shame, so to speak. Is there a king or a prince of this hall of shame?
Aram Suren Hamparian: I would say the races to watch on Election Day are the Pappas-Sununu race. We’d love to see Pappas win. We are dedicated to helping Sununu lose. He has profited in the millions of dollars from the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh.
So the Sununu race in New Hampshire at the very top of the list, and then the Cuellar race, unseating Henry Cuellar, electing Judge Tano.
Asbed Bedrossian: Mm-hmm.
Aram Suren Hamparian: This would be the reclamation of a congressional district by American voters from the Azerbaijani regime. So those are at the very top of the list.
Asbed Bedrossian: Okay, great. Well, let’s move to the goodies so that we don’t get accused
Aram Suren Hamparian: Oui.
Asbed Bedrossian: of constantly giving only bad news and focusing on all the negatives.
Aram Suren Hamparian: Yep.
Asbed Bedrossian: There are 71 A’s.
Aram Suren Hamparian: Oh yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: That’s a good start. And there are 12 A pluses. In a sense, it balances 12 F’s on the list.
Aram Suren Hamparian: Thank you.
Asbed Bedrossian: We should just kind of mention them so that, you know, we at least give them the honor of that.
Aram Suren Hamparian: Mm-hmm.
Asbed Bedrossian: So we have Jim Costa and David Valadao, Judy Chu, Laura Friedman and
Aram Suren Hamparian: Hmm.
Asbed Bedrossian: Brad Sherman from California. And we have Florida Republican Bilirakis. And we have Massachusetts Markey, Michigan’s Gary Peters. We have New Jersey’s Frank Pallone.
Is he outgoing?
Aram Suren Hamparian: No, no, he stayed.
Asbed Bedrossian: Excellent. And so Rhode Island, three out of four are A pluses. Jack Reed, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Gabe Amo.
Aram Suren Hamparian: Absolutely.
Asbed Bedrossian: So that is the list. Interestingly, 10 Democrats and two Republicans. What do you have to say about all these people who have been steadfast friends of Armenians?
Aram Suren Hamparian: Sure. I would look at Fresno, the Central Valley of California, and the two legislators you mentioned, David Valadao, a Republican, and his neighbor, Jim Costa, a Democrat.
Asbed Bedrossian: Mm-hmm.
Aram Suren Hamparian: Both are of Portuguese heritage. Both have families that have been in the Central Valley for generations, and both have grown up around Armenian-Americans. Costa very close to our community, attends a lot of our events, Valadao, who actually traveled to Artsakh so I think that’s an example of our community operating in sort of the most healthy and robust way which is we like to say we’re not the RNC we’re not the DNC we’re the ANCA we are stakeholders in our communities in our society, in our country that’s really reflected in the Fresno example. Of course, folks like Frank Pallone, he founded the Congressional Armenian Caucus.
Ed Markey just went to, a year or two back, went to Azerbaijan during one of their environmental conferences
Asbed Bedrossian: Mm-hmm.
Aram Suren Hamparian: to challenge the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh. Gary Peters, during the blockade of Artsakh , traveled down to the Lachin Corridor to bear witness main action by Baku. So these are folks who have gone beyond simply supporting our issues to really leading our issues, and we’re blessed to have them.
Asbed Bedrossian: Okay.
Aram Suren Hamparian: We got like five members from Texas to co-sign that letter, the letter 100 members who signed. So we’re actually doing decently in Texas these days. And by the way, we had two young women from Alaska come to our last lobbying days in D.C. 30 states, yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: All right. Well, we’re going to leave it there, Aram. Any last words before we head into these midterm elections?
Aram Suren Hamparian: Thank you. In this hotly contested political season, passions obviously run high. Folks who have preferences to the left or right are very passionate about their preferred party, their favorite candidates, and that’s great. Partisans should be trying to deliver their friends and family and community to whatever position it is that they hold.
That’s what partisans do, and that’s perfectly fine. But it’s not what we do. Our job is actually really just the opposite, which is to take these politicians, red or blue, left or right, and to deliver them to our priorities, to a just peace in the Caucasus, to an honest remembrance of the Armenian genocide, a stronger Armenia, a robust and engaged diaspora. These are our goals, and we seek to bring politicians to our goals.
We’re not interested in delivering our votes to politicians just because, you know, they happen to sit somewhere on the American political spectrums. For folks who say, you know, you guys take sides, we’re like, yeah, I guess we do take sides. But it’s very, very strictly the Armenian-American side.
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah. And, you know, like you said, if we remove foreign influence and corruption out of the way, these people usually end up on the side of truth and justice, and they’re our friends.
Asbed Bedrossian: Aram, on November 5, you are mapping out the Armenian community’s post-election agenda for the new Congress. Please come back soon in a couple of weeks and tell us about that. We would love to hear that on our show. in the meantime let’s see how our friends do in these u.s midterm elections next week good luck to all of them and for now thank you for sparing the time from your crazy schedule and hanging out with us we always appreciate it
Aram Suren Hamparian: Of course, of course. Thank you, guys. Keep up the great work.
Asbed Bedrossian: Thank you.
Hovik Manucharyan: Thank you.
Asbed Bedrossian: And to our American listeners, vote. Please get out and vote. Make your voice heard. And if you want to keep up with Armenian-American perspective, please go to the ANCA website, anca.org slash electionhub to get the latest for our perspective.
Thank you very much. I’m Asbed Bedrossian.
Hovik Manucharyan: I’ll see you next time.
Asbed Bedrossian: Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
Hovik Manucharyan: Bye bye.