Bob Amsterdam

Look, Tucker, as you and I have discussed, I do not understand the evangelical movement, the Christian movement in the United States.

One thing I want to say, and I won't make many friends by saying it, in the United States, Christianity has been subsumed by the State Department.

The U.S.

government decides what Christians we support and what Christians we don't.

So in Armenia, there is going to be a prayer breakfast.

And I want you to understand, there's going to be a prayer breakfast while my client, Samuel Karapetian, is in jail.

Archbishops have been jailed.

Clerics have been jailed.

The leader of the country is trying to split the church by going to services of a defrocked priest.

A man who has said he is going to remove the leader of the church.

This man is being feted by American Christians.

In Yerevan, Armenia, a man who calls clerics prostitutes, a man who uses language that, at my advanced age, I've never heard a leader use against leaders of the church.

And yet, shockingly, this prayer breakfast is going to go on.

And I call it a reputation laundering breakfast.

The U.S.

government allows this to go on.

look i can't exactly tell you i'm not privy to the arrangements but as i've seen in representing the ukrainian church um the prayer breakfast and religious freedom all seem to follow a script outlined by the state department and you know there's a lot of pressure from the administration on peace

in terms of Armenia and Azerbaijan, which, of course, all of us welcome.

But it's happened at a tremendous cost to the people of Armenia.

There's tremendous cultural and church relics that are being lost and defiled.