East Montgomery Times

Gary Alexander, the former Secretary of Human Services for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, said Armenian Americans "should recognize and appreciate" President Donald Trump's support for Christian communities in the U.S. and the Middle East. 

"As an Armenian American who had the privilege of serving as Secretary of Human Services for this great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I deeply appreciate President Trump's support of Armenians in Artsakh," Alexander told East Montgomery Times. "His condemnation of the ethnic cleansing of Armenian Christians comes at a pivotal moment for our people."

"The dire situation facing the Armenians of Artsakh demands immediate attention, and President Trump's unequivocal stance shines a light on this critical issue," Alexander said. "Armenian Americans and others should recognize and appreciate his commitment to Christian minorities in the Middle East and religious freedom."

The ethnic Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Christian community within a largely Muslim Azerbaijan, faced an ethnic cleansing in October of 2023. The estimated 120,000 ethnic Armenians in the region were forced to flee to Armenia after clashes with the Azerbaijani army resulted in the deaths of over 400 individuals, including civilians.

"Kamala Harris did NOTHING as 120,000 Armenian Christians were horrifically persecuted and forcibly displaced in Artsakh," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Oct. 23. "Christians around the World will not be safe if Kamala Harris is President of the United States. When I am President, I will protect persecuted Christians, I will work to stop the violence and ethnic cleansing, and we will restore PEACE between Armenia and Azerbaijan."

After the first attempted assassination attempt against Trump earlier this year, several leaders of the Armenian church wrote a public letter to the former president. "In these turbulent times, when violence seems to erupt unexpectedly and even in our own beloved country, we the religious leaders of the Armenian American community come together to pray with and for you and your family," the church heads wrote in the letter.

"We also joyfully respond to you, President Trump, and to your call to come together in unity so that we may live in peace," they said. 

"For decades, we Armenian-Americans have been rightly disenchanted by the serial failures of U.S. foreign policy toward Armenia," Armen Morian, a member of the Board of Trustees of St. Illuminator’s Armenian Cathedral in New York City, wrote in a recent op-ed. "A vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for the status quo and the same policies that will inexorably drive Armenia into catastrophic deals with Azerbaijan and Turkey, purchased at the cost of sacrificing our land, culture and historical claims for justice."

"A vote for Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a vote for a disruption of the status quo, a disruption that may give us a fighting chance — and perhaps the only chance — for our advocacy to receive a serious hearing with the hope of influencing a new way forward," Morian wrote.