president - said president-elect 'showed the dictators in Beijing that he's not a pushover'

California congressman Dana Rohrabacher says he thinks he could 'accomplish a lot' with former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton as his deputy, should he become the next secretary of state.

Two aides to President-elect Donald Trump transition told DailyMail.com last week that that Rohrabacher had been added to the list of candidates amid infighting within the incoming administration over who should be the nation's top diplomat.

Rohrabacher's resume has since risen to the top of stack, according to the Washington Examiner. He and Bolton are under consideration as a 'consensus package.'

The Republican lawmaker said today that Bolton is a 'very good friend' and he agrees with him on 'most things.'

Rohrabacher told Fox & Friends that he also shares Trump's views on challenging China and a detente with Russia in 'order to defeat radical Islam.'

'Some of my other colleagues found that impossible to do,' he said. 'It feels like they want to get back to the Cold War with such hostility.'

California congressman Dana Rohrabacher says he thinks he could 'accomplish a lot' with former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton as his deputy, should he become the next secretary of state.

The U.S. faced off against the Soviet Union in the Cold War, he said. 'Not Russia.'

'Russia and the people of Russia are good people, and they have a chance to work with them to defeat this evil that threatens the planet right now.'

Rohrabacher has openly advocated for a military alliance with Russia to fight terrorists in the Middle East, a policy that would dramatically change the balance of power between Washington and a strategic rival.

President Vladimir Putin's military has been aggressively bombing anti-government rebels in Syria – in some cases, the same insurgents the U.S. has been arming.

Rohrabacher said Monday he agrees 'very heavily' with Trump that the U.S. should 'establish a positive relationship' with Putin's government 'in order to defeat radical Islam.'

He at the same time defended Trump's hard-charging rhetoric against China and the president-elect's phone call with Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen.

'I think it's terrific,' Rohrabacher said of the controversial call the Trump administration has tried to downplay as a 'courtesy.'

'Consensus package?' Rohrabacker and Bolton are reportedly being considered for the top two diplomatic positions

Vice-president elect Mike Pence said Sunday that China shouldn't be angry about the talk - the first between a U.S. leader and a head of state in Taiwan since 1979 - and argued that Trump is being held to an unfair standard.

'I think most Americans, and frankly most leaders around the world, know this for what it was. And it's all part and parcel,' Pence said. 'I think you're going to see in a President Donald Trump a willingness to engage the world but, engage the world on America's terms.'

Rohrabacher told Fox Trump 'showed the dictators in Beijing that he's not a pushover.'

'You've got to remember, China has had an enormously aggressive foreign policy, and by him actually going to Taiwan, he's showing the people in Beijing that they cannot have this aggressive foreign policy and expect to be treated just the same by an American president.

'So I think it was a terrific message to them: We're no longer going to be pushovers, and there's going to be consequences for their hostile and aggressive actions,' Rohrabacher said.

Rohrabacher told Fox & Friends he shares Trump's views on challenging China and a detente with Russia in 'order to defeat radical Islam'

Rohrabacher said in an interview with DailyMail.com he's confident he's the best-suited contestant in the State Department sweepstakes.

A group of transition advisers including Blackwater Worldwide founder Erik Prince – a Rohrabacher intern more than a quarter-century ago – are pushing the Trump team to consider the congressman alongside reported front-runners including Gen. David Petraeus, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Sen. Bob Corker and Bolton.

'I really think I could do the best job for him,' he told DailyMail.com confidently after listening to a list of their names.

Rohrabacher backed the president-elect in the general election but was critical of him early on, saying after Nancy Reagan's death in March that the former first lady would have been 'horrified' to hear some of Trump's rhetoric.

'Every time there's a debate he's insulting his opponents in the debate. Reagan would never have dreamed of that. And Nancy more than anything else was someone who demanded a sense of propriety,' Rohrabacher said on MSNBC.

But that was then.

'Of the people who we've talked about so far as secretary of state, I know that I would do a much better job of promoting a Trump foreign policy, because I believe in it,' Rohrabacher said.

Rohrabacher, seen in 2013 with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is a senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs

Rorhabacher (right) and a small bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2014, one of many meetings Rohrabacher has touted

He compared himself to 'the other people that are being looked at – who may be very well-loved people, but at the same time may think that they are big enough to try to push Trump in their direction, rather than trying to work with Trump to ensure he succeeds in what he wants to do.'

'A lot of these bigwigs that everybody knows,' Rohrabacher added, 'they've got an ego so big that they think they should be able to push the president around.'

The lawmaker said he has support for the job 'just below the top level' of the Trump transition, but he hadn't received an invitation him to interview with the president-elect at that time.

Prince, who spoke to DailyMail.com last week, as well, said he's 'all-in. I am an unabashed supporter of Dana Rohrabacher.'

'He's a very hands-on guy,' he said of his former boss.

Rohrabacher 'would be a different kind of secretary of state because he's not the typical diplomatic conference attending kind of guy. He's a practical guy who sits across from people and learns what they want and see how it jives with what's good for America and Western civilization,' he added.

Rohrabacher was a Trump backer late in the presidential campaign, but criticized his harsh rhetoric early on

Rohrabacher met in 2012 with Afghan Chairman of National Front Ahmed Zia Massoud. The Congressman once fought the Soviet Union's army to help push it out of Afghanistan

Trump has already named Prince's sister, Betsy DeVos, to lead the Department of Education. It's unclear whether she is supportive of Rohrabacher, but Prince said she isn't 'actively lobbying' the transition team on his behalf.

Rohrabacher, a 13-term Republican, is a senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and chairs the Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats.

He has a reputation for pushing the boundaries of international relationships on trade and national security.

And he pulls no punches when he talks about the upcoming pressure, especially from conservative Republican members of Congress, to roll back much of what the Obama administration has wrought overseas.

'We've got to turn the direction of the country. ... And no matter what department of agency we're in, we've had radical liberal leftists in charge of our government and setting policy for America for the last eight years,' he said.

'And that is going to be a horrific process.'

Rohrabacher said Russia's Vladimir Putin (left), Japan's Shinzo Abe (center) and India's Narendra Modi (right) are the world leaders he would visit first as secretary of state

Erik Prince, the founder of military security contractor Blackwater Worldwide, is a former Rohrabacher intern and said he's 'all-in' trying to persuade Trump insiders to give his old boss a serious look

The congressman told DailyMail.com that the U.S. military should be actively cooperating with Vladimir Putin's Russia on missions to push back the ISIS terror army in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.

'Absolutely,' Rohrabacher said. 'Military cooperation with Russia.'

'Right now our primary enemy is radical Islam!' he exclaimed. 'And we need to work with the Russians to eradicate radical Islam!

Syria, he said, is 'where I think we can have the most impact, and that's where we can be very productive with Russia, in fighting radical Islam.'

Rohrabacher has a history with Putin. Politico called Rohrabacher ' Putin’s top congressional ally,' an odd position for a former Cold Warrior who once fought the Soviet Union to expel it from Afghanistan.

But Trump, too has advocated a thaw between Washington and Moscow, an attitude that could put the Californian in his foreign-policy sweet spot.

Rohrabacher has already been trying to generate buzz about making him secretary of state, sending a plea to his constituents for votes on a Breitbart.com poll

Rohrabacher told DailyMail.com that Russia, Japan and India are the three countries he would visit first as secretary of state, with both trade and military cooperation in mind.

'I would immediately take a plane and land in Tokyo and talk to ... Abe. I'd go to Moscow and talk to Putin. And I'd go to New Delhi and talk to Modi. And talk about how we're going to have a much higher level of cooperation in the years ahead,' he projected.

'We should be cooperating with them economically, militarily – just across the board – we should try to make sure that there's a bond between our governments and our people,' Rohrabacher explained.

Russia, he said, should be discouraged from forming strategic alliances with China, especially when the U.S. is trying to thwart Beijing's new territorial claims in international waters.

'Perhaps we can make sure that they don't in some way get themselves aligned in China, and these South China Sea islands and some of the other territorial claims that China has made. So yeah, we would be working with Russia,' he said.

'Russian ships should be joining us in transiting through what the Chinese are calling their territorial waters because they built some island.'

On the phone call, Rohrabacher underscored five separate times that he would promote Trump's foreign policy objectives – not his own – if he were to lead the State Department.

'One of the prerequisites is that I've worked in the White House. You have to accept the president's decisions and work for that goal,' he said.

He also sent an email to his constituents to drum up public support for the idea.

'I have been told that I am under consideration to join President Trump’s team as Secretary of State. While my present intention, of course, is to continue to fight for liberty and freedom as a member of the House of Representatives, as a strong supporter of President-Elect Trump’s vision for America, it would be a privilege and an honor to serve as his Secretary of State,' the message read.