A Pragmatic Republican Makes His Case: Will Hurd
Subscribe to the Podcast
A Pragmatic Republican Makes His Case: Will Hurd
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 Congress in Texas’ 23rd Congressional district, which he won in 2014. Texas’ 23rd Congressional district includes Uvalde, TX, where a gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in May 2022 and killed 19 students and two teachers. 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.
Read the Original Episode Transcript
Will Hurd
Will Hurd is currently a managing director at Allen & Company and former member of Congress, cybersecurity executive, and undercover officer in the CIA. For almost two decades he’s been involved in the most pressing national security issues challenging the country whether it was in the back-alleys of dangerous places, boardrooms of top international businesses or halls of Congress.
After stopping terrorists, preventing Russian spies from stealing our secrets, and putting nuclear weapons proliferators out of business, Will helped build a cybersecurity company that prepared businesses for the next domain of conflict – cyberspace.
While in Congress, Texas Monthly and Politico Magazine called Will “The Future of the GOP,” because he put good policy over good politics at a time when America was often consumed with what divides us rather than what unites us. He was able to get more legislation signed into law in three terms than most congressmen do in three decades – substantive legislation like a national strategy for Artificial Intelligence.
Will is a native of San Antonio and earned a Computer Science degree from Texas A&M University. Additionally, he is growing the US transatlantic 
partnership with Europe as a trustee of the German Marshall Fund, an OpenAI board member, and most recently served as a fellow at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. He is also the author of American Reboot: An Idealist’s Guide to Getting Big Things Done, which was released in March 2022. For more information, please visit www.willbhurd.com.
Want to hear more? Check out our podcast page to see all the discussions!
