Mark Alford knows a little something about the mammoth task Trump administration officials have in taming the bureaucratic beast in Washington, D.C.

The Missouri congressman, after all, couldn’t even get his foot in the door of the Biden administration. Not even to say hello.

“I saw it when I first got here. When I first got here three years ago, Biden was in office,” he tells The Lion’s Chris Stigall in an interview. “I tried to get into [federal] buildings just to meet people, and they wouldn’t let me in the building – as a sitting member of Congress.

“And I wasn’t coming in to do a gotcha, like the Democrats want to do at ICE facilities. I just want to come in and meet people, and they wouldn’t let us in.”

Alford’s experience is a metaphor that only foreshadowed what he says Trump’s cabinet secretaries are going through now in trying to install a populist, America-first government – the one voters thought they’d elected.

“You’ve got, I would say, half the people that are working under you trying to sabotage you,” he says of Trump’s cabinet officials. “So, imagine in your work environment having to deal with that and trying to be successful.

“Upsetting the apple cart”

“President Trump wants to turn Washington around. He is upsetting the apple cart, and it’s upsetting people and threatening them, their livelihoods, their futures, and what they see should be the future of America.

“Kash Patel is doing the same thing over the FBI. Pam Bondi, the same at DOJ. Judge Jeanine Pirro, who I’m working with to try to get more funding for her district here in D.C. – I’m on the Appropriations SubCommittee that oversees that – she’s going up against the same thing.”

The obstacles to implementing Trump’s agenda are becoming more of an urgent issue as next year’s midterm elections loom – and the media is full of angst about “affordability,” after largely ignoring the issue under Biden.

Meanwhile, socialists such as New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are growing in popularity, particularly in younger circles.

“This is what scares me,” Stigall tells Alford.

“He’s got a great smile,” Alford says of Mamdani.

“It’s working, I’m afraid,” Stigall responds – while wondering aloud whether Republicans can make a case before the midterms that capitalism is preferable to socialism and that it’s more capable of making such things as homes more affordable for young buyers.

“Let’s look at who Mamdani and AOC and Ilhan Omar and all these radical people are going after,” Alford suggests. “They’re going after the so-called disenfranchised people, people who feel like they’ve been cheated somehow, that they’re victims. They are really profiting off of victim mentality. 

“My message to the American people is, if you’re the poorest of the poor in America, you are 100 times better than the average person in the world, especially those living in so-called Third World countries. We are here because of the providence and protection of God Almighty, and He has given us each the opportunity to make something of our lives.

“I don’t believe in diversity, equity and inclusion. I don’t believe in equity. I believe in equal opportunity. We have that in America. We have the chance, the opportunity; I don’t care where you come from, what station in life, there are ways for you to make your life better. And it doesn’t mean the government having to do that.”

Repairing Biden’s damage

Yet, Stigall wants to know, what do Republicans say to young Americans who say “they’re up against it” when trying to get into a house?

“I’d say you’re right,” Alford says, “because not only do you have to come up with a down payment, you’ve got to come up with a monthly payment, which includes insurance, utilities. I think President Biden has done a lot of damage to the housing market.

“Let’s back up just a little bit. Under the Inflation Reduction Act, the ‘New Green Scam,’ these building codes that were propagated – Kansas City adopted these – it made building a house 23% more expensive.

“For a six-month time period after that passed, there were only two or three building permits on a house pulled in Kansas City. That brought supply down; builders moved out of Kansas City.

“At the same time the government there, and the mayor, were trying to concentrate on affordable housing. How do you make housing affordable when you’re raising the price of it by 23%?

“Add on to that the interest rate that skyrocketed. My old home that I had in Kansas City, we had at 3% interest. We built a new house in our new district in Cass County; it’s almost at 7% interest. My house payment more than doubled, OK?

“That was due to Joe Biden pumping $4 trillion into our economy, and some of it during COVID. And I know that Trump did too during COVID, but Biden did it on steroids – with impunity – and that caused the interest rate to go up.

“Now, President Trump has brought that interest rate down. … But I think the first, second quarter, in particular, you’re going to see the true benefits of the One Big Beautiful Bill, combined with interest rates down, energy prices down, hopefully premiums coming down in health care – we’re going to be able to pass some legislation do that.

“We are setting ourselves up for success in the midterms.”

Still, Alford acknowledges it will take even more than good policies for Republicans to win over young voters being seduced by the siren song of socialism.

It will take empathy.

Midterms: Reason and empathy

“Republicans are very logical,” he says. “I’m probably generalizing here. We’re not that emotional.

“I hate this term that Bill Clinton used, ‘I feel your pain,’ but we’ve got to be better empathizers. We’ve got to understand where people are coming from, listen to them and try to come up with viable, reasonable, rational solutions to make life better for those who feel like they’re victims.”

Empathy is a quality Alford values, and it’s one that should hold him in good stead as his altered 4th Congressional District will now include a good chunk of Kansas City’s urban core – as well as rural communities.

It’s a balancing act that Alford says his longtime relationships and philanthropic activities in urban KC will help him in.

“I tell people, I’m not just at home in a corporate boardroom talking to folks there or the corn fields of Camden County. I’m just as much at home in the urban core of Kansas City. My son lives one street over from MLK Park that my wife helped build and got the trees donated for when she worked for the parks department there.

“We’re very much in touch with the churches in the urban core. Pastor Modest Miles is one of my good friends. We’ve done a lot in the past working with his community center, and continue to do so. And I’ve kept these relationships alive because they’re real relationships to me.”

As for representing rural as well as urban Missouri, Alford says it’s not as difficult as people want to make out.

“So here’s the deal. The critics say, ‘No one can do that. You can’t represent people down in Hickory County … as well as Kansas City. They’re not the same issues.’ I’m like, BS – everyone wants the same thing.

What people want

“I don’t care what color you are, how much money you have, what county you live in. They want safe streets, a secure economy. I don’t think they want an open border, because of the stress that illegals have put on our economy, which we’re seeing right now. We want to be able to provide for our families. We want to be able to go to our churches without fear, our synagogues without fear.

“We want communities that work, and that’s what Republicans stand for, and I fight just as hard in Hickory County, Dade County, everywhere I go down in the southern part of our district, as I will in Kansas City.

“And I think that scares the Democrats, because they know that. They know my history of helping charities and helping the underprivileged in Kansas City.

“To me, that is the true heart of Republicans anyway. I think we’ve gotten a bum rap over the years – we’re the country club party, or we’re the Chamber of Commerce party. Yeah, I like business. I love small business. I’m on the Small Business Committee. It’s the fabric of America – 33 million small businesses.

“But I want to plant that seed of entrepreneurship and capitalism in places where socialism is taking over – that message, that fraudulent message, that the government should take care of you from cradle to grave. I want to dispel that, because there’s nothing more satisfying than a man or woman who puts his or her life on the line, basically, to go out and start a small business and be really the captain of your destiny, with the help of God, of course.”