Washington views on the 2020 election: Trump is a 'global movement for individual liberties'

As the 2020 election approaches, KUOW is checking in with Conservative voters from across the state -- from ardent Trump supporters, to those who aren't.

This is part KUOW's ongoing election coverage leading up to November, with people from across the political spectrum. KUOW is presenting these voices as the opinions and the perspectives which inform people's votes in 2020.

• Hossein Khorram: An Iranian-American Muslim who immigrated to the United States and became a businessman. He is the finance chair for the King County Republican Party. He is also the finance chair for the Trump campaign in Washington state.
• Issues/perspective: Race is an issue being inflated by Democrats to create controversy ahead of the election. He does not see systemic racism, especially in the GOP.

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n February, Hossein Khorram went to a fundraiser for President Trump in Beverly Hills. At one point during the event, an Iranian woman asked if she could hug and kiss the president.

“I thought with the coronavirus, the president would say no … but it was fine," Khorram said. "My friend went ahead and kissed the president … Secret Service was like, ‘What are you people doing?’ I said, ‘Can't you see? We are kissing our president because we love him so much.’"

"Trump was absolutely fine. He is not an elitist. He’s an average American like you and I. All this about him being a racist, and GOP being racist, is absolutely a lie. Don’t believe in any of that stuff."

A GOP strategist and MAGA artist: 2020 Washington state perspectives

Khorram passionately speaks about race-related issues as factors in the upcoming election. It's the issue he brings up most when speaking about the election.

“On the Trump Victory side, I’m talking nationally with co-chairs, roughly about 20% of them are immigrants like me, people of color. And I just do not see systemic racism. I'm sorry, I just don’t," he said. "I feel that African Americans have made an enormous contribution to our country with civil rights. Dr. King is really an icon. His name is recognized globally. It’s brought civil liberties and equal rights to many billions of people globally … it really breaks my heart to see a group of leftist politicians, a lot of them in our state, who are walking on the backs of African Americans and try to portray them as victims and make something out of nothing for their political gains."

“Biden is going to lose against Trump; he doesn’t have the stamina," Khorram said. "And if it goes this way, they are not going to have the White House. So they are trying to create chaos and enough anger with the general public to make people vote the status quo. There was the Russian investigation first, collusion. That didn’t work. They just moved into coronavirus -- and the coronavirus, they just overinflated that to create enough scare … now you got Bolton coming up (John Bolton’s book). It’s just one after another. I will tell you that Washington State Republicans and Trump supporters are fed up with these lies. They are going to come in mass and support the truth.”

As enthusiastic as he is about the president, Khorram notes that he wasn't initially a Trump supporter when he ran for the 2016 election.

"He was talking about things like the deep state, things that we never really understood to that point; we never really thought about it," he said. "What I’ve seen in the past four years is that everything that Trump said has come true. I’ve seen what the deep state is doing. I’ve seen what the globalists are doing. I’ve seen what foreign influence is doing.”

What they are doing, according to Khorram, is allowing multinational companies profit by using cheap overseas labor and "depriving American workers of opportunity."

“He is a movement, he is a global movement for individual liberties,” Khorram said. “A person who talks against globalism, and against corrupt and hidden agendas run by multinational companies, corrupt politicians to drain people, not just in the United States but the rest of the world, of the benefits and quality of life they are entitled to.”

“He created the biggest economy we ever had …" he said. "This coronavirus is unfortunate. It was not brought about by what he did. It was created by the Chinese – whether intentional or unintentional is up for debate."

“He’s a businessman. In business, we focus on results. We don’t care who delivers them. We just want to have better outcomes … if we leave the politics out to the extent that we can, and focus on results and human values, I think we are going to have our America back. There is no systemic racism. That is a pack of lies. We are all Americans. We can live together fine. We just have to stop lying about things that are not true and do not exist.”