Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

I'm Stephen Sacker, host of the BBC's Hard Talk podcast, with in-depth, hard-hitting interviews with newsmakers from around the world.

In this special edition, I'll look back at a year of interviews.

Big elections, catastrophic conflict.

2024 has been a year full of upheaval and suffering.

This is a chance to listen back to some of hard talks's most memorable moments. Of all those elections this year, from Russia to Mexico, the UK to India, it was the presidential vote in the United States

that offered the most compelling, consequential narrative.

For those who wrote Donald Trump off after his 2020 election loss and his supporters' assault

on the Capitol, 2024 delivered the mother of all shocks.

He won the popular vote.

He won the Electoral College.

The convicted felon took back the White House.

I spoke to the Democratic Party Senator Chris Murphy,

but first you're going to hear from one of Donald Trump's

most loyal Republican supporters, Senator Lindsay Graham.

Inflation is eating people's paycheck alive. We've had 10 million illegal immigrants coming to the

country, raping and murdering people. People do not believe the policies are working. They're

living the consequences of disastrous policy choices. Inflation is down, as you well know.

You accuse Kamala Harris of being soft on crime. In California, she was criticized for being too

tough on crime. And the fact is, and again, facts matter.

Violent crime and murders across the United States have gone down during the marriage years.

I don't buy that one bit.

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