Let's Find Common Ground - The Crucial Role of Centrists: Will Hurd

Episode Date: June 23, 2022

We live in a world of political extremes, with the 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 on this show says yes. Former CIA agent and Republican congressman Will Hurd of San Antonio won three terms representing Texas’s 23rd district. He was told he could never it because it was bright blue, while he was red. Hurd says he succeeded by engaging with everyone, not just voters who shared all his beliefs. “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.” Hurd grew up bi-racial in Texas, which gave him the early experience of finding common ground. In his book American Reboot he outlines how to "get big things done" by focusing on policy, not politics. He also shares his thoughts on what Americans should be worrying about, including losing control of the technology which we use to run our lives. 

Before we start the show, Common Ground Committee is doing a survey to find out more about what you want from our podcast. Please help us by going to commongroundcommittee.org slash podcasts and filling out the survey. Yeah, your response will really help us. We'd like to know how Ashley and I can make this podcast even better. The survey is easy to fill out. Just go to common ground committee.org slash podcasts. And thanks. 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 Nell Tite. 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 Yvalde, 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 Yval value 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 and 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. And 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, right? 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 a mass shooting. 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,

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 gun owners. 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 can come in, okay. If we wanna say we want 18, 19, 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 opened 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 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 devorate of people. But I made a rookie mistake.

I had cased this location in 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 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 in 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, does 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 asked where a hospital was.

And I asked him to fetch me a rickshaw. And woman gets in the rickshaw I give her some money I said take it 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 rearview your 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's switching the instant because there was a sign, a show of warmheartedness.

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 vitriol, there's a lot of people upset, there's a lot of people angry, there's a lot of 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's just like I saw in that alley in South Asia, that a show of one hardness, 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 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 mama said either 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 okay 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 do a job I was really good at. Move back to my hometown and ran for Congress and lost a run off 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. 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, right? He's great. Pedagular and in California is a house, you know, in the house, Democrat. John Catco 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 growing their social media footprint, than actually solving and addressing and doing the hard things that are required in a democracy. Yeah, well, you talk a lot about extremes in the book and you also said, 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? Like that started in 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. And so that started my opposition to moderates. But a lot of time the phrase moderate, using the media in 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 independence, I had to get democratic vote for me. So I had to take conservative message to communities that didn't identify with me or with the 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. You know, 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. I had a... 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 asked 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 stay on stage and be shouted at, but actually moved 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'd 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,

then 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 on what I was able to find and do. And so it just completely changed the tenor of the conversation. We'll heard on Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashley. I'm Richard. Common Ground Committee produces a lot more than this podcast. Check out our blog via the homepage, commongroundcommittee.org, and you will find a recent statement there from our co-founders on reducing gun violence with the title, stop the posturing, and do the hard work.

And we'd love you to take part in our survey, which you can find on the podcast page. That's commongroundcommittee.org slash podcasts. Now back to our interview with former Republican congressman, Wille 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 Trumpism. I think Trumpism 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 concentrating 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 periodful 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 authoritarians winning and some not. But the party is going to govern from the authoritarian wing. 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 going to still be dealing with the issue of inflation. We're still going to be dealing with a recession in Q1 of 2023. We're going to still be dealing with the issue of inflation. We're still going to be dealing with countries like Russia, China, and Post-It-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 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's the president. And so if Republicans continue this big lie, right?

If we continue to fuel disinformation, misinformation is straight out lies, then we're going to miss an opportunity for long-term electoral successes. And this is a roading 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 in 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,

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 tough. Your own party is moved to the right, or at least to an authoritarian position, and Democrats have moved to the left. So how do you get elected as someone who's not an extremist? Well, I did it, right?

So nobody thought I was going to 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 text. 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 the 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 when I was like, it takes a Latino to beat a primary, Black Republican. And now this is what a time when everyone's 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. Right, like, 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 accompli. 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.

The hate that my Asian American brothers and sisters have been seeing in this country last couple of 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 of about 60% of semiconductor manufacturing in the world. Ads 10% of what the Chinese government already does, that's 70% control on the building blocks of every single electronic device that is in this country, in the world.

Until 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 going to 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 going to be built upon 5G. And so when the Chinese own right now, 30% of global 5G infrastructure,

that means they're going to 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 gives you nuclear energy, clean energy that can last forever. Nuclear vision, 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 government 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 Uyghurs, 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 and our friends to develop it is the only way we're gonna be able to counter the what the Chinese government is trying to do. And it's gonna impact every facet of our life. And there's a lot of questions behind how we should answer some of these issues and these are some of the debates that we should be having. Final question, what do you mean by American reboot? 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, the 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 want to 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 will 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 recognize that 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, the bigger the common grand movement can become.

I'm Ashley Melntite. I'm Richard Davies. Thanks for listening.