congressman mark alford, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. congressman, your party, the republican party, has control of the house of representatives and the house is in chaos. why? well, republicans are independent thinkers. we always have been and we always will be. republicans are made up of entrepreneurs, businessmen and —women, conservatives who appreciate capitalism, who appreciate america for what we are. it's the land of individuals. and so when you're trying to herd 220—some—odd individuals in one room, it's kind of like herding cats. we all have our own opinions, we have our own districts who we were sent to represent, in my case, some 775,000 individuals from just south of kansas city in the heart of america. but those individuals cannot be happy with what they've seen in recent weeks and months. that is a party that is at each other�*s throats, which got rid of a speaker, which you felt was a big mistake, i believe, but it happened anyway. now a new speaker is in place, but it's unclear whether he can command the loyalty of the hardliners in your own party caucus. i come back to this point — your party, as far as the public is concerned, is failing. well, you're right in one regard, people are not happy. i think all americans are not happy. congress has an approval rating of 19% right now, far below the approval rating of my previous profession, being a journalist in the united states of america. we have lost confidence in what we do here, the american people have, and i think rightly so, because there's this intransigence. i feel like sometimes we're in quicksand, that we're not able to move forward. and i haven't quite put my finger on why that is. i think, well before i got here, we saw this play out. there were some personal grievances, personality conflicts, i think some very selfish motives about why people were voting the certain way they were and why. .. ..and the grievances they held, especially against speaker kevin mccarthy at the time. that was disappointing to me, because i was somewhat naive — even though i'd been a journalist for 35 years, i believed that people came up here to vote for their district and vote for their conscience. and i also came up here with the steadfast belief that i would neverjudge anyone else�*s vote. they have to vote on their own, and it's not my place to judge how they voted or why they voted. but it's become quite apparent to me, as we look at the underbelly of what's going on here, that things were not working. i do believe that it is getting better in the short weeks that mikejohnson has assumed the position of speaker of the house. how do you think this looks, notjust to people in your district back home in missouri, but to people in the outside world? america claims still to be the pre—eminent power in the world. we're looking at the possibility of another government shutdown. if it doesn't happen, you're just going to kick the can down the road till january or february. and at this very same time, joe biden is pleading with the congress to pass an overarching foreign assistance bill which would allow him to continue to fund the ukraine war effort, also to send new military and financial assistance to israel and also to taiwan. he says this is about america fighting the fight for freedom around the world, and at the moment there's no way he can persuade the us congress to pass his measure. well, one of the big mistakes is the biden administration is showing weakness on the world stage. it has gotten us into these messes around the world. i firmly believe that the way that he pulled out afghanistan... hang on. this is about biden wanting to show that america is prepared to back its allies. ijust mentioned israel, ukraine, taiwan. he says this is all of a piece because those countries, in his view, are confronting an authoritarian threat, which is a threat to america as well as themselves. we passed a healthy bill to support israel. it was our first step under the new speaker, to pass first the resolution supporting israel, second, to provide an aid package. we did that. we took money away from the federal government under the inflation reduction act to hire 87,000 new irs agents, who are going to go after the average, everyday american, take that money back and spend to invest in israel, to resupply the iron dome, for humanitarian relief and for our state department. just on the point of israel, because i want to move on quickly to ukraine, but on the question of israel, of course, we see israel's ferocious military offensive in gaza unfold day by day. i've looked very hard to find any republican politician who has called on israel to pause, has called on israel to consider the humanitarian cost of its offensive. i can find no republican who is talking in that kind of way. because we know that israel... ..has every right to defend itself and to eradicate hamas. i firmly believe that until this arm of islamic terrorism is eradicated, that these problems are going to persist. i'm talking about the humanitarian situation. israel now is going into these areas now where in the hospitals that hamas leadership are using underground and using their own people... they have no value for human life. look what they did to the women there in israel, what they did to the families. if i may say, congressman, nobody is disputing the barbarity of what happened on october 7th and the responsibility of hamas for that. what is at issue is whether israel is currently violating international humanitarian law and is failing in its duty and obligation to protect civilians. joe biden has recently said hospitals, for example, must be protected. now, are you saying joe biden�*s got it wrong? look, we all know that hospitals are a place for people to receive care. but when those people are being used as human shields, i believe the idf is using every care they can to protect civilians while trying to eradicate hamas. when you have these islamic terrorists using their own people, who they don't care about, who they won't even let leave their country in many circumstances, what good is the pause when it's only going to allow hamas to regroup and use more humans as human shields? this is a chance for the idf to eradicate the islamic terrorists which have been causing a lot of pain and suffering, notjust for the israelis but for their own people. this is a time for change, and i stand behind that. when vladimir putin's russian forces levelled the city of mariupol, many republicans in this city called that a war crime, demanded vladimir putin be held to account, brought to justice. how can you live with that double standard, one standard on ukraine, another standard on israel? look, we know that vladimir putin, in his badness or his conniving... i think, again, biden showing weakness on the world stage promulgated to some degree his aggressions towards ukraine and this undue illegal war prosecution on ukraine. sorry, congressman, i just want to be clear what you've just said. you're blaming joe biden for russia's invasion of ukraine. i believe that had president trump still been in office, this never would have happened. xijinping would not be breathing down the neck of taiwan. we would not have the problems on the world stage if we had someone behind the resolute desk in the oval office who showed strength, courage and determination and let the world leaders know where we stand as a nation. joe biden�*s weakness has...contributed to the uncertainty of what's going on in world politics right now. you not only do not have one shred of evidence of that, but what you are currently doing as a republican party on capitol hill is blocking joe biden and his desire to give another 60—plus billion dollars of military assistance to ukraine in order that ukraine can resist putin's invasion. your position to most people outside of this city makes absolutely no sense. well, let me explain, then, because we just had the secretary of defence from your country in our office last week. we talked about this and i explained the situation. here's the situation. we have appropriated more than $113 billion to ukraine over the last year, a little more than a year now, to help in their defence and to help beat back russia. russia cannot win this. we know that ukraine must win this, because next the balkans, moldova and possibly poland, a nato nation, and then, under article 5, we must get involved as a nation to support them. so you're saying it's a vital american interest that ukraine wins this war and yet your party is currently blocking american military assistance. we're asking for answers. we are asking for answers from zelensky, and we're asking for answers from joe biden. what does the endgame look like? what does victory look like for zelensky? my constituents back home all know that vladimir putin is a madman and should not have started this war. but they also know that we cannot have an endless war like we had in vietnam, where it goes on and on and we don't know how much money is going to be spent eventually, we don't know what the outcome is going to be. i know there are no guarantees when it comes to war, but we deserve some answers. what does the endgame look like? is it taking back the donbas? is it taking back crimea? what does the endgame look like? let's talk about us domestic politics. yes. you ran for congress, what, a year or so ago, describing yourself to the people of your district in missouri as a "maga king". maga, of course, being the trump slogan, make america great again. what do you mean by being a maga king? well, look, you know, make america great again is not a new terminology. i think president reagan used it as well. there's this... there's something about america that, unless you live in america, it's kind of hard to understand, i think how we came about, how we gained our independence, the entrepreneurial spirit, the love of capitalism, but also the compassion that we have for fellow human beings, trying to lift everyone up. i've made it my goal, notjust to... i want to inspire people to greatness. and part of that, the make america great again, is doing just that. you describe yourself as "a total, no—compromise, unapologetic defender of the constitution". i wonder how that squares with your defence of donald trump, who, of course, denies that he lost the 2020 election, is still an election denier, claims it was rigged, that it was stolen and is now facing 91 criminal charges across four trials. now charges, of course, which he denies — he calls the trials a witch—hunt. but how does your defence of him square with your commitment to the constitution? right up there in my case, next to that $1 bill with george washington, i have my father's constitution and it's underlined like someone would underline a bible. and i know under that constitution that the prescriptions for our elections in the united states of america are "set forth a time, place and manner by the individual state legislatures, not by the state executives". but, i said this on the campaign trail, and i'll say it now. because of covid and the emergency that was set forth by covid in the united states of america and really the world, the election laws were changed by the executives and not by the state legislatures. four states circumvented the constitution of the united states to establish their own time, place and manner for elections. that was wrong. we have to make sure it never happens again. 0h, hang on, congressman. i'm getting confused here. are you telling me that, as we sit here in november 2023, you are still saying that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, was rigged? i'm not saying that it was stolen. i'm saying... what are you saying? ..that four states circumvented the law... so you're saying... ..circumvented the constitution and our supreme court under justice, chief justice john roberts right across the street here would not take up that case, would not grant it writ cert. and they, i think, made a mistake in doing that, for whatever reason. well, here we go again. the republican party deeply divided. bill barr, attorney general under trump, says, "i think the federal case is against trump," and he's talking about the ones which pertain to trump's claims that the election was illegitimate. "the federal cases are legitimate," barr says. "republicans are complaining about the weaponization of the department ofjustice. trump has made it clear he wants to weaponise the department ofjustice." you call yourself a constitutionalist, "no compromise, unapologetic defender of the constitution". donald trump right now is tearing apart constitutional norms in america. i disagree with that. i believe president trump, former president trump, is trying to get america back on track. we have gone off the rails. we have a two—tier system ofjustice in america, the department ofjustice, the fbi, we have seen what they have done protecting joe biden and his, the biden crime family is, as i've been calling it, with the illegal transfer of money, the bribery that has taken place. you've been using a phrase, "the biden crime family", which has absolutely no basis in fact. well, you look at what's been under—covered with the ways and meansjudiciary and oversight committee in these very halls. and i tend to disagree with you. there's a direct link now of $40,000 cheques being written tojoe biden, "the big guy", an alleged commission. and this is going to further unravel. you know, that congressional investigation uncovered no evidence of wrongdoing that they could find directly. well, the investigations aren't over with. no, but... they're ongoing. there was an exhaustive investigation this year which found no evidence of wrongdoing that they could lay at the door ofjoe biden. i disagree with you, sir. but that's the fact. there's a $40,000 cheque written tojoe biden. you're not going to let it go, even though there is no evidence. we're not going to let it go until the truth is uncovered. the truth is the only thing that matters and, unfortunately, there are a lot of people in this town, in this nation, who don't want to hear the truth. let's talk about your version of conservatism. 0k. you are very open that you are a man of god. you support speakerjohnson who said, "if you want to understand my worldview, read the bible." you appear to be a similar sort of politician. does it worry you that, in the most recent round of off—year elections in the united states, voters across this country appear to be turned off by that brand of conservatism ? how so? let's take 0hio. let's take the vote on abortion, where the people of ohio, by a very clear majority, decided they wanted to ensure abortion remained legal by putting it in their state constitution. mm—hm. it was a huge blow to social conservatives, to culture warriors like you. and what's the question? is it going to make you rethink? no. i think mikejohnson and i share a similar value in that, um... ..we have levels of priority. and while we do have separation of church and state here in america, we are still guided by our principles and our value and our belief in god and belief in the holy bible. um... abortion... we've got to make sure that we don't sacrifice our belief in god for votes, and what we believe, i'll just speak for myself now, what i believe to be true... ..i cannot change that simply to get votes. and that is what you're seeing right now with the abortion debate in america. are we going to equivocate? are we going to give up our values to gain votes? if you believe that life begins at conception, how do you equivocate and come off of that and then allow for abortion under certain circumstances? to be clear, to be clear, you don't believe in abortion, the right to abortion, for a woman who has been raped, who is pregnant as a result of incest, even if the female is underage, is a minor. you still... those are very, very rare and everyone likes to bring those cases up. i just want to be clear, though. i'm not misrepresenting you, am i? no, you're not. and you know, you are completely out of step with a clear majority in missouri, your own state, which in many ways is quite a conservative state. yes. but it is clear from the research polling that around 70% of missourians think that abortion must be legal in cases of rape and incest. one of the things that we've lost in this whole abortion debate, and this is troubling me and it has for some time, we have left out the mother in this equation. we have lost our compassion for the mother who finds him...herself in these situations. we have separated the baby growing inside of herfrom her set of circumstances. and we have to, it's a package deal. we have to showjust as much compassion for the mother as we do for the baby. and so that's why i believe in life—affirming care for the mother and the baby that god is growing inside of her. when you look forward to an election, which, we don't know, but may well be trump vs biden. mm—hm. are you concerned about the stability of the united states when just this past veterans' day, donald trump says that democrats, to use his words, are "vermin who pose a more sinister threat to the united states than countries such as russia, china and iran". do you worry, when you hear that sort of language, that the very stability of this country could be at stake? i worry that if biden gets another term, we could lose our country. that is my big concern. yes, donald trump is hyper—hyperbolic at times... calling his opponents "vermin". yes. it's that language he would use. is that language you would use? no, but i'm not donald trump. you're a man who describes himself as a "maga king". you've put your political career on the line as a follower of donald trump. you hear him use these words like "vermin", to describe his opponents. you read the reports which say that his associates are already planning to put the military on the streets the day after a trump victory using the insurrection act. you know that he's talked about going after former colleagues like bill barr. you know this is what could happen. and you sit here, you tell me you still feel donald trump is the right man to lead america? i think donald trump will be able to do things in his second term that he was not able to do in his first term. had he had a different attorney general, had he had a different fbi director, we would not be sitting here today talking about a re—election of donald trump because he would have already been re—elected. the mistakes that he made in his first term, he will not make again. and that's why the democrats and some of the media are scared to death that donald trump is going to get a second term and he is going to clean house in america, that he is going to change the way that washington operates, i think with the help of most of us in the republican conference. look, there are things that i don't personally like about donald trump, his hyperbolic use of terms, but, look, i'm not donald trump. he has made his success in business and in life and in politics and i'm not here tojudge him. i'm here to, i think, appreciate his policies and hope to work with him in the future to truly make america great again. and we get back to the maga terminology. look, america is that we are this close to going over the edge in america and that's why i ran for this office. i did not want to be in a nursing home and look back and think, "i wish i had done something to help my country." i gave up everything i had to do this. and yes i, this past weekend, when i went home for the first time, i thought because of our stalemate here in our conference in our congress, i said to my wife, leslie, "i don't mean to scare you, but this is the first time i've had some doubt about being here." but when i get back here and i see the resolve of our conference to try to form some semblance of unity, to try to get back to doing the business, to try to pass these appropriations bills, it gives me hope and i want to be a part of that. congressman mark alford, we have to end there, but thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you, sir. hello. thursday will bring us a day of contrast across the uk. in the south we're going to be feeling the impact of storm frederico, which is mainly down across france, bringing strong winds but still producing some wet and windy weather generally towards the south. brightest conditions across the north and north—east of the uk. but we're going to see some fog patches clearing to sunny spells later on. so we've got this area of low pressure moving across france. that's storm frederico and another weather front moving in to the west as well. but really windy conditions for the isles of scilly, the channel isles. gusts could reach in excess of 50 miles per hour. some really heavy rain through the likes of the isle of wight towards sussex, stretching up towards pembrokeshire for instance, as well through the morning. to the north of that, most places predominantly dry. there'll be some heavy showers just working in around the east coast of england, perhaps eastern scotland and later on some rain working into northern ireland from the west. but elsewhere, some sunshine just breaking holes in the cloud and lifting gradually that morning mist and fog. but it could linger all day for some of the sheltered glens of scotland. so pretty chilly there. generally looking at temperatures about 6 to 12 degrees. through thursday evening and overnight, this weather front in the west starts to edge its way eastwards, tending to peter out as it does so. so still a few showers moving in from the west, but some clear spells as we move through into friday morning. and it's going to be fairly chilly. in fact, we could see temperatures below freezing once again in the sheltered scottish glens. heading through friday, though, a small ridge of high pressure for a while tries to nudge in. so that will bring us a window of drier and brighter weather, too. not completely dry. there'll be one or two showers perhaps around western parts of england, scotland and wales as well. further east, you're more likely to stay dry, i think on friday. cloud and rain moving into the far south—west later in the day. pretty chilly ahead of that, only about 5 to 12 degrees. and again, some mist and some fog possible. but head on into saturday and this area of low pressure moves in from the atlantic — a lot of isobars on that system showing us that we're going to have a blustery day with some fairly heavy showers rotating around that area of low pressure. so i think nowhere immune to showers, probably drying up a little bit in the south later on in the day. but sticking with the heavy potentially thundery showers, but it's going to be milder — temperatures around about 9 to 15 degrees. sunday, again, we've got the airfrom a milder direction. so not as cold saturday night into sunday. sunny spells, some heavy showers, could be the odd thunderstorm. temperatures around 10 to 14. bye— bye. live from london, this is bbc news. president biden holds talks with chinese leader xi jinping, with the two leaders agreeing to resume high level military communications. both israel and the palestinians have condemned the first un security council resolution to call for humanitarian pauses in the conflict in gaza. and the uk opposition leader suffers a major rebellion — with more than a quarter of his mps voting for an immediate ceasefire in the israel—gaza war. hello, i'm sally bundock. president biden has described his talks in san francisco with the chinese leader, xijinping, as their most constructive and productive discussions yet. mr biden said they agreed to resume high level military—to—military communications and he said clear and direct contact was necessary to avoid