Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today, in this interview

recorded on the 4th of December, has found a political sweet spot, and he's making the most of it.

For more than two decades, Mark Olford was a news anchorman on a Fox TV station in his adopted home

state of Missouri. But two years ago, he swapped the newsroom for

the campaign trail and fought for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as an ardent disciple

of Donald Trump. He won big in November 22, and he won even bigger in his re-election bid in

Missouri just a month ago. As a diehard Christian conservative advocate of

Make America Great Again, he is now nicely placed for his senior position on one of the House's

key committees. He'll be one more foot soldier in the Trump project to blow up the status quo in

Washington. But in practice, what will that mean? Well,

Trump has already nominated a slew of Uber loyalists for top jobs, many with controversial views on

everything from deporting millions of migrants to vaccine skepticism and ending military and financial

assistance to Ukraine in its war with Russia.

The president-elect also seems intent on a massive overhaul of the federal government to

slash its size and remove those he sees as enemies within. In short, Trump 2.0 promises seismic

levels of disruption and potential division.

Is there any likelihood that the Republican-controlled legislative branch will act as a moderating influence?

Well, Congressman Mark Olford joins me now from Washington.

Welcome to Hard Talk.

Thank you, Steve. Good to be with you. Last time we met, you were here in my office. Good to be across the time. And here you are on my big screen, but it's still great to see you. Let me start with a very simple opening question. It's based on something you said about Donald Trump as president-elect. You said, he is going to clean house in America. I would put it to you that the transition is only a few weeks old, and already it's beginning

to look a little messy.

Well, I think this is the most rapid transition team that we have seen in recent presidential

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