Let's Find Common Ground - A Pragmatic Republican Makes His Case: Will Hurd

Episode Date: July 6, 2023

Moderate Republican Will Hurd insists that across the country "there is more that unites us than divides us." The former GOP Congressman threw his hat into the ring in June with a video announcement that he's running for President of the United States. Our latest episode of "Let's Find Common Ground" re-visits our interview with Will Hurd, recorded one year ago.  Hurd stresses the need for both pragmatism and nuance when tackling guns, immigration, and other hot-button issues. But don't call him a squishy moderate. “In the media in Washington DC…moderate means middle of the road,” he says. “But in reality, moderates are the ones that do the hard work and get things done because they’re the ones that are having to take a philosophy to people that may not identify with it.”  Will Hurd served as a CIA agent overseas and conducted briefings for members of Congress. This experience inspired him to run for Texas 23rd Congressional district, which he won in 2014. Congress. He was elected three times in a swing district where Democrats often win. Hurd says in our podcast interview that he succeeded by engaging with voters from both sides, not just voters who shared all his beliefs.  

This summer we're revisiting a few popular shows from the past. This week's episode is prompted by a recent news event. Yeah, former Texas Congressman Will Hurd recently announced he's joining the pack of Republican candidates for president. He's running with the slogan, Common Sense for Complicated Times. We spoke with Will in the spring of last year, not long after he published his first book. Our episode focused on the important role of centrist in US politics. And by the way, Common Ground Committee wants to be clear that airing this episode does not come

with an endorsement. So here's our show from June 2022. We live in a world of political extremes, with a far-right and far-left denigrating each other on a regular basis. But could the future lie with politicians who appeal to everyone else? Our guest in this week's podcast says, yes, former CIA agent and Republican Congressman Will Hurrod of San Antonio won three terms in the 23rd Congressional District in Texas, a place that he was told he could never win because it was bright blue while he was red.

This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Richard Davies. And I'm Ashley Nontite. Will Hurd says he succeeded by engaging with everyone, not just voters who shared all his beliefs, and he says others like him can do the same. In his book, American Reboot, he outlines how to get big things done by focusing on policy, not politics. We spoke with Will just before a bipartisan compromise deal was announced

on guns, and also as the January 6th hearings in Congress were about to get underway. Diving right in with current events will obviously the whole country is shaken by the recent mass shootings, especially the one in Yvaldé, Texas, which was part of your congressional district for years. Do you mind sharing your thoughts about what happened there? Well, look, it starts with you still have families that are having to bury their children. And Yvaldi is a community where everybody knows each other. And so it's not just families that are grieving, it's the entire community that

is grieving because somebody coached those kids in Little League and others drove them to school in the mornings. So the pain is just unbearable. There's a lot of questions about what happens still weeks later. And one, understanding what actually happened is important for closure for the families, but it's also important to understand how we deal with these kinds of threats going into the future. We don't have a full accounting of what did happen, and so I don't want to get ahead of that, but it seems like there were some decisions that were made that shouldn't have been made. They could have potentially prevented loss of life. So understanding that is important. And then how is this going to drive the conversation

in Washington DC about things that we can do about this? And those that think nothing can be done against mass shooting. I disagree with them. I think there's many things we can do. We have to attack this problem at every part of the problem. This is a cycle that starts before a individual thinks about conducting a mass shooting. And so I hope that this tragedy leads us to some action. Recently you wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times and the headline was, I'm a Republican who represented you, Valdi in Congress.

I want more than thoughts and prayers. Is the very polarized nature of our debate over gun rights versus gun control part of what you're talking about that very often it's the extremes that grab the headlines that get the attention and yet there is a potential for some form of compromise or at least common sense legislation. Look, there is and here's the fundamental problem that drives a lot of this. The extremes of both party drive oftentimes the conversation. And on this debate, on this question, you know, the extremes are ban all weapons.

And then the other side is do nothing. There's a whole lot in the middle. Universal background check. I got a May rating from the NRA when I was in Congress, right? They supported me on my elections. I've been around guns for most of my adult life, you know, depending on one when I was an undercover officer in the CIA. I do not know of any gun owners, responsible gun owners, who have not done a background check. And so something as

simple as universal background checks, there's actually a lot of support for that. And what the rhetoric gets thrown in, that is you're taking away the rights of responsible donors. No, you're not. You're saying from this day forward, everybody has to go through a background check, right? An 18 year old should not be able to go get a semi-automatic firearm. Now, let's say, and here's where some of the compromises have come in, okay, if we wanna say we want 18, 19, and 20 year olds to be able to buy it, then guess what, they have to do some additional training and similar to what kind of, you have to do

when you get the hunting license here in Texas. So that's a place where there's some wiggle room to have a conversation around this topic. So you alluded to your CIA career a couple of minutes ago and you clearly had a very exciting time in the CIA before you entered politics and you tell a story in your book about what could have been a really scary situation that could have gone quite badly for you and actually it didn't. Can you tell that story?

I open the book with a story from early in my career and so my job was to recruit spies and still secrets best job on the planet And when you're going to meet somebody who's giving you secrets, you have to conduct a surveillance detection around, an SDR. And so you basically drive around a city to determine if someone's following you. And I thought I was getting ready to turn down an alley. That was devoid of people.

But I made a rookie mistake. I had cased this location the morning I was using in the afternoon. And the morning there was nobody there, but when I turned down there, my Toyota Tursell, it was like a parade. There was a couple thousand people in this alley pack animals you name it.

And I'm driving about four months an hour. And this woman walks in front of my car, and I roll over her flip-flop, and I mash on my break, drag her foot across the concrete, bust her toe wide open, bleeding everywhere, and she realizes I'm not from around there and start screaming bloody murder. And this was a, this was a neighborhood

that polite society would have said was rough, right? And so I have a couple hundred people banging on my car, shaking my car. Now our standard operating procedure, the second lesson you learn in the CIA is get off the X. The X is the location where something's going down and the last place you want to be when it's going down is where it's going down. But I wasn't going to be able to make it very far. I had a weapon but not enough ammunition for this situation. So I did what was least expected. I got out of the car.

And I knew some of the local language were not good enough for this situation. And I said, of the local language were not good enough for this situation. And I said, is anybody speak English? And I will remember this kid's face the rest of my life. He raises his hand in the air and he says, I speak the English and I ask where a hospital was and I ask him to fetch me a rickshaw. And the woman gets in the rickshaw, I give her some money,

I say take it to the hospital immediately and they drive away. And the crowd starts clapping. They pat me on the bat. One dude even, I'm six some money, I sit take her to the hospital immediately and they drive away. And the crowd starts clapping. They pat me on the bat. One dude even, you know, I'm six foot four. One dude even helps, you know, pack my six foot four frame in this little car and I drive away and I'm looking in the rear view mirror and everybody's waving at me. And I begin with this story in the book because to me this was the reason in an instance a

crowd a mob went from wanting to rip me out of the car and tear me apart to and it switched in the instant because there was a sign a show of warm heartedness right like I tried to show some empathy and compassion to the problem that I created, and then I was trying to solve it. And it changed in a moment. And I actually think that's where we are as a country. There's a lot of vitriol, there's a lot of people upset,

there's a lot of people angry, there's a lot of people banging on cars. There's elected officials at every level, and both parties stuck in the car, some are encouraging the drama outside. Some are trying to ignore it. But I think that, just like I saw in that alley in South Asia, that a show of one of our,

and it's a show of compassion, a show of trying to solve the problems for all Americans, is going to see a change in our country. And so that's why I started to book off with that story. So after, or perhaps during this exciting career in the CIA, you decided to go into politics, what on earth made you switch careers, especially when you had such a dim view of politicians.

Well, the short answer in part, and apologize for my language is I got pissed about what I was seeing. And I decided, you know, my mom said, you did part of the problem, part of the solution, and I saw this try to do something about it. In addition to recruiting spies and stealing secrets, and I got to do it in a lot of exotic and exciting places in the world, I also had to brief members of Congress when they came overseas and were at our embassies in our station. A station is the CIA facility in a country.

And I was shocked by the calobur of our elected officials. And I tell a story in the book about a member of Congress that was on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, not knowing the difference between a Sunni and a Shia, that difference in Islam. And to me, it's OK for my brother not to know that, because he sells cable here in San Antonio, Texas, but for a member of the Intelligence Committee to not know that, it's just unacceptable to me.

And there's a number of other stories like that. And so I decided to run. Let's or job I was really good at move back to my hometown and then ran for Congress and lost a runoff by 700 votes, which is not a lot of votes, but then I'm glad I don't tell that story anymore, but in the opportunity came a few years later and I ran in one. opportunity came a few years later in Iran and won. You serve three terms in Congress for your district in southern Texas. Do you still have the same view of politicians that you had before you ran? Are there a huge number of members of Congress who are neither qualified nor curious enough to be elected representatives.

Sure, of course, but there's also a lot that are really great. John Corden, he's super conservative, he's working on some of this legislation now. I've gotten to know Chris Coons from the Northeast, he's great. Pedagular and California is a house, in the House, Democrat. John Cacco from New York, a Republican.

There was a guy who recently retired, he was a senior leader on the House Armed Services Committee, Mac Thornberry. Mac Thornberry is a guy that everybody should try to grow up to be like. I always told Mac, had I met Mac when I was in the CIA, I probably wasn't the left, because I'd been like,

I'm glad that dude is making our laws. Robin Kelly from Illinois is again, Democrat. So there are many that I got to know and respect, and I think are great legislators and are great models for people to be like. But there are some that are more interested in entertainment. There are some that are more interested in entertainment. There are some that are more interested in growing their social media footprint, than actually solving and addressing and doing the hard things that are required in a democracy. Well, you talk a lot about extremes in the book and you also say, I mean, I think most

people would consider you a moderate Republican, but you say you really can't stand the word moderate. Why is that? So, I hate labels, anyways, right? That started at a young age. My dad is black, my mom is white. The phrase multiracial or biracial really didn't exist when I was growing up. And so I didn't fit in with the white kids, I didn't fit in with the black kids.

So that started my opposition to moderates, but a lot of time the phrase moderate, using the median Washington DC specifically means squishy, right? It means kind of middle of the road, but in reality, moderates are the ones that do the hard work and get things done, because they're the ones that are having to take a philosophy to people that may not identify with this.

In my old district, if every Republican voted for me, I would still lose. I had to get independence. I had to get Democrats to vote for me. So I had to take conservative message to communities that didn't identify with me or with the letter letter after my name. But to me, a lot of folks use that as a derogatory term.

You work harder to be frank. And so that's why I get a little annoyed with that phrase when it's using a negative way. You grew up as a multiracial kid in Texas. Has that affected how you think about the potential for Americans to come together and understand that they really do have stuff in common? 100%. And I also got bullied a lot as a kid. My head has been this size since I was four years old. I wore a size 13 shoe when I was in fifth grade.

Wow. That is something. Yeah, and this was back when, you know, weren't like, you know, the only size 13 shoe you can buy at Mervins was red. And it wasn't cool to wear red shoes back in the 80s and 90s, okay? And so, you know, all of those things influenced my experiences at a very young age, but it also taught

me one, you shouldn't care about what other people think, except for the people that you love. And that gave me a thick skin to take and deal with the negativity that some are going to direct at you for whatever reason. But it also taught me what it's like to be in a situation where you're unlike everybody else. But here's what I learned representing a truly 50 district, meaning 50% Republican, 50% Democrat. Way more unites us than the devices. There's no question about that. When I would be in Ruby Red Districts in San Antonio or deep blue districts in El Paso. I got to ask the exact same questions.

People brought up the exact same issues. They cared about the exact same things. They were worried about putting food on the table or roof over the head and making sure that people that they love were healthy, happy and safe. Obviously, at all these events and town halls and stuff, sometimes you got people who were really angry. What happened once when you opted to not get all these events and town halls and stuff, sometimes you got people who are really angry.

What happened once when you opted to not stay on stage and be shouted at, but actually move toward the person who is shouting at you? Can you tell that story? Sure. So I literally held records for the number of town halls that I did. And so I spent a lot of time in the district. This is people's lives. And when something is impacting their life, they're going to get emotional. And it's okay. And so,

but here's what I've learned. It's hard for people to yell at you up close. And so I was in West Texas, and I was unaware of a major issue that was impacting the community. It was about a gas pipeline. And when I expressed lack of knowing it, the community, everybody erupted. And so I was like, I'll come back. Y'all brief me on this. Let me get some information. And so it was probably the biggest pact auditorium that I had ever had in West Texas. And everybody was upset. And the first speaker is yelling and upset. And you know what I've started doing? I started getting closer to the mic when where they were speaking from. And by like the fourth person, I'm standing there close enough through a week and shake hands.

And so when somebody would come up to the mic, I would shake their hand. Everybody's temperature decreased. And then we had an honest, we started having an honest conversation. And so I was able to understand the issue. I was able to show some outrage and empathy and then say, hey, okay, here are three or four things that I'm going to try to go do. And I'll be back in a couple of weeks to brief you all on what I was able to find and do. And so it just completely changed the tinner of the conversation. You're listening to an encore episode of Let's Find Common Ground, with former Texas Congressman and current Republican presidential candidate will heard. I'm Ashley. I'm Richard.

While we prepare for the fall season of shows, there's still plenty to keep you busy on the Common Ground Committee website. Read our Founders latest blogs, check out our recent podcasts and watch past events. And I know we mentioned this a lot, but we really would like to hear from you and get a sense of what you like and dislike about the show. You'll find a link to tell us what you'd like to hear at commongroundcommittee.org slash podcasts. You said dislike the show? Goodness me, I thought we were doing perfectly, but if you disagree, then please leave us a message and also in the show notes in your podcast app now back

to our interview from last year with Will Heard. Let's talk about your party, Republicans. Many people and not just Democrats are concerned about a move towards an authoritarian perspective. There have been reports that in meetings with local activists, Republican party operatives have even worked on plans to install trained recruits as regular election poll workers and put them in direct contact with party attorneys. Now election workers

are supposed to be nonpartisan. What do you think of this move that's been going on? It's bad for the country, it's bad for the party. But when it comes to the Republican party, this authoritarian wing, and I appreciate that term better than saying Trump is. I think Trump is too narrow in talking about this phenomenon that existed prior to Donald Trump and is going to exist after Donald Trump. And so the only way that we're going to ultimately solve problems is by not having a one-size-fits-all solution to a lot of these issues. We should be the party that is seeing not enforcing groupthink. Because ultimately authoritarianism is about constrain power into an individual, and ultimately

over long term, stripping away people's rights in order to ensure that a particular individual stays in power for much longer. And that's a dangerous precedent. Now I would also say that there's examples of the authoritarian wing of the party winning and losing. I think at the end of 2022, you're going to have some victories, some losses. And I don't think if this was a tug of war, the flag is probably going to stay somewhere in the middle when it would be between those two camps. But here is going to ultimately be the problem.

Republicans are taking back the House period full stop. Even with all the latest issues that have popped up, Republicans are still taking back the House. And they're going to win with some authoritarian winning and some not. But the party is going to govern from the authoritarian week. And if they do that, there will be tons of losses in 2024. The lesson of the 2022 election is going to be. And unfortunately, Republicans are going

to take it as the American public loves us. That's the wrong lesson. The American public is completely dissatisfied with the incompetence of the other side. That's why they're voting for other people. And if we don't provide solutions and challenges, we'll possibly be dealing with a recession in Q1 of 2023. We're still going to be dealing with the issue of inflation.

We're still going to be dealing with countries like Russia, a China imposed their will on our allies. All of these issues that are being, that the current administration is being criticized for. If we show no willingness to deal with some of those, all of those problems become our problems and we're going to see a loss in 2024. And so ultimately, I think those are some of the trends that are going to cause the authoritarian wean to lose some of its power and some of its gas over time. Reportedly, a majority of Republicans don't believe the Joe Biden rightfully won the presidency. What do you do about that?

Yeah, look, I'm not questioning those numbers, right? But like, I don't, I personally, in my interactions, this is not an issue that comes up. People like Joe Biden is the president. And so if Republicans continue this big lie, right? If we continue to fuel disinformation, misinformation, and straight out lies, then we're going to miss an opportunity for long-term electoral successes. And this is eroding trust at every level of our society. And my argument, if Donald Trump would have won, if he would have equaled what down ballot Republicans got

in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan, he would have won. He underperformed. Donald Trump got less votes than the other Republicans on those ballots in those states that he lost. That wasn't a theft. That was the public saying, we are sick and tired of jerks and we want something different. And so I still believe that that is the majority of where people are.

And yeah, it's a challenge, but here's what needs to happen though. The January 6th commission, like they need to complete their work. They need to get that information out there so that the public can stop having these drips and drabs of information and say, hey, clearly this is what happened. This is what led to us.

Here are some things that we didn't know about. That was going on behind the scenes and so that we can have some finality so we can talk about how to prevent this from happening in the future. Oh, and by the way, we need more people voting in primaries. When you look at Texas, we had primary elections in March, three million people voted out of 30 million, 1.2 million Democrats, 1.8 million Republicans. That's terrible turnout. And so we need more people that are concerned with these issues to step up and vote in primaries. How long is it going to take for a politician like Will Heard?

I hate to use this word, but a moderate to be elected. I mean, if you seek higher office, it's going to be elected. I mean if you seek higher office it's gonna be tough. Your own parties move to the right or at least to an authoritarian position and Democrats have moved to the left. So How do you get elected as as someone who's not an extremist? Well, I did it right like so nobody thought I was gonna win when I ran in the 2010 election They're like I haven't lived in Texas in 15 years. It was still my home. I've been back and forth. That was my place of residence.

I spent a lot of time in Texas. I was a black Republican running a 71% Latino district and everybody was endorsing my other opponents. And I won the first round by 900 votes. And I lost a runoff because I made a mistake. I made a mistake counter to the advice of all my people. But I won in 2014 in a primary, Black Republican, and this is what a time I was like, it takes a Latino to beat a Latino.

Ted Cruz had endorsed my opponent. He was at the height of his power. The Tea Party was still a fang. They were endorsing my opponent. He was a former member of Congress, so he had more name ID, more money than I did. I know how to do this. It's hard, it takes a little more effort, but it's not what I could say. It just takes a level of effort and being able to talk about things people care about. We talk to the same people over and over because that's the easy path. And if we want to change, and why does all this matter?

Why should Republicans care? Why should Democrats care? Why should independence care? Because America staying the global superpower is no longer a fate of complete. The American economy staying the most important economy is not guaranteed. And we are in a new Cold War with the Chinese government and if we don't start addressing some of these generational finding challenges that our country has faced, it is going to have an impact on our society at every level.

Okay, so you just mentioned the new Cold War with China and other things that are threatening America's place in the world. Talk about some of the things Americans should be worrying about in your opinion that we're not right now. So one of the things that we should be worried about, and there's some kind of conversation around this, but it's ultimately around Taiwan And the Chinese government I always try to be very clear. It's the Chinese government. It's not the Chinese people

It's definitely not Asian Americans Right, the hate that my Asian American brothers and sisters have been seeing in this country last couple years is unacceptable So when I talk I talk about the Chinese government specifically. They are going to invade Taiwan, period full stop. Why are they going to invade Taiwan, partly because the Chinese president believes that to reestablish a Chinese dynasty that Taiwan is part of it, but also. It's because Taiwan's response is about 60% of semiconductor manufacturing in the world Adds 10% of what the Chinese government already does that's 70%

Control on the building blocks of every single Electronical device that is in this country and in the world And so the Chinese government if this is their statement in, in the world. And so the Chinese government, if this is their statement in English, in their own publications, is China's capacity United States of America as the global superpower. And they're gonna do that by being a leader

in advanced technologies like 5G, quantum computing, artificial intelligence. And so these are the issues we should be talking about. Yes, Huawei, and the people here about Huawei, they make all the equipment to do 5G. Why does 5G matter? Because all future technologies is gonna be built upon 5G.

And so when the Chinese own, right now, 30% of global 5G infrastructure, that means they're gonna ultimately control everything that runs on top of that. Like artificial intelligence. What should be a data policy and information that someone's able to collect online about you? And how should that power these tools?

Artificial intelligence is like nuclear vision. Control, nuclear vision gets you nuclear energy, clean energy that can last forever. Nuclear fission, uncontrolled, gives you nuclear weapons, which can end, you know, life as we know it. AI has that same level of power. And so we need to be talking about how does our values drive this? Because guess what? We know what values of Chinese governor

are instituting in this. It's how are they able to control their population? We're seeing it in places like Xinjiang Province, where the Uighurs, the Chinese ethnic minorities have been basically put in internment camps. And we see the Chinese government, we talk about authoritarianism, they're exporting that all over the world.

And so these technologies and how we work with our allies their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, their own experience, we should answer some of these issues and these are some of the debates that we should be at. Final question. What do you mean by American reboot? Well, it's a lesson I learned in my first job in college working at a computer lab. When the computer, I didn't know how to fix a computer, what did I do?

I rebooted it. I didn't change the operating system. I didn't put new stuff on it. I got back to a fresh operating system. And this is what our country needs to do. We need to get back to those values and principles that have gotten us over 247 years to be the most powerful country on the planet, have the most important economy on the planet, and to help uplift humanity all over the world. And so let's get back to those values of freedom,

these opportunities, opportunities of growth, growth leads to progress. Let's get back to majority rule with minority rights, right? And that appreciation of federalism, where local control matters, and if you wanna do something different in Texas, then you do in California, you should be able to do that. These are the principles that have made our country great.

And these are the principles we got to get back to. And that's what I mean by a reboot. Thank you so much for coming on. Let's find common ground well. It's my pleasure and I appreciate what you're doing because there's a lot of Common Ground. We can find it. We just gotta be talking about it more

and recognizing it's out there. Well, that's music to our ears. Will Hurd's book is American reboot and idealist guide to getting big things done. And if you enjoy the podcast, please give us a review. Reviews help other people find this show and the more people listen, things done. This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.