Presidential Candidate: Will Hurd

Will Hurd campaign website: Official Hurd for America Website – Will Hurd for President – 2024 (willbhurd.com)

By Ashley Bean Thornton

I have been summarizing the opening campaign speeches from the presidential candidates. I have been trying to sift through the campaign rhetoric to pick out what they are saying about what they actually plan to do if they are elected.

Will Hurd did not do me any favors for my project.  He announced his campaign via a video – which gave some information, but not as much as a regular speech. I ended up drawing from three different sources to try to get a fair representation of his positions.   

I have shortened, rearranged, and paraphrased quite a bit, but I tried to stick pretty close to his own words and to be fair in summarizing what I assume to be his platform for 2024.   – ABT

Here are the links I used:

• San Antonio News Interview – https://youtu.be/XJpuE6K8-G0
• Campaign video – Common Sense in Complicated Times | Hurd for America – YouTube
• Atlantic Article on Guns – A Firearm-Owning Republican’s Solution for Gun Violence – The Atlantic

Here is the link to the page where I compare these speeches by topic – Candidate Comparison – Dead Armadillo Politics (deaddillo.com)

 

What he says he has done…

• As a CIA operative — Hunted down terrorists in the Middle East after 9/11.
• In congress – Fought to lower taxes, secure our border, and provide more opportunities for the middle class.
• In business – Worked to harness technology and innovation for the future of America.

 

What he says he will do…

Bi-partisanship – The stalemate we see in our democracy right now comes from our leaders’ failure to understand a simple fact: We are better together. Solving the problem of gun violence, along with other great issues of our era, will require commonsense leadership in these complicated times, and communities across America are depending on it.

China – The fact that you have the Chinese coming into Cuba expanding their intelligence footprints in that country is because of a failure of growing our alliances and networks in the Western Hemisphere.  We have to have great alliances and that starts within our own backyard.

Culture – I envison an America that acknowledges science, addresses mental health and is inclusive and understanding.

Economy – I envison an America where the economy thrives because we harness technology like artificial intelligence to grow American jobs not unemployment.  I’ll put our American Security and prosperity first.

Education – I envision an America where every child – regardless of location or age – has access to a safe, world- class education.

Guns – When I was in Congress, I had an A rating from the National Rifle Association and received support from the group for my reelection campaigns. I believe in the Second Amendment; its language is straightforward. For almost a decade, my job overseas as an undercover officer in the CIA required me to carry weapons, and I continue to be a gun owner as a private citizen, because I believe in being able to defend my home.

No one-size-fits-all solution can tackle this problem, but let’s also not pretend that nothing can be done. After 9/11, we made it improbable that another attack of that scale on our homeland would happen again: revamping airport security, neutralizing Al Qaeda, and improving federal agencies’ intelligence sharing. Yet when confronted with the epidemic of mass shootings that plagues our nation, we have failed to treat it with a similar level of urgency and significance. Instead, the majority of our leaders have chosen inaction.

We can take significant steps toward curbing gun violence by implementing comprehensive background checks, empowering law enforcement through red-flag laws, investing in mental health, and raising the minimum age to 21 for purchasing a high-caliber, semiautomatic weapon that can hold a high-capacity magazine. These realistic solutions deserve serious consideration at the federal level.

Immigration – When it comes to our border security the first step is to stop a policy that actually started under Donald Trump that Joe Biden continued – we have to stop treating everybody as if they’re an asylum seeker. Asylum is very specific. You have to be part of protected class. You have to be targeted by being part of that protected class.  We have got to stop doing that.  That is what’s causing so many people to want to try to come here illegally in between our ports of entry. We also need to streamline legal immigration.  This is something that unfortunately President Biden doesn’t want to do because big labor and unions do not want to see robust guest worker program.  Then we have to address root causes in those countries where, historically, we’ve seen most of the illegal immigration come from.  It’s a fraction of the cost to solve the problem there, before it gets to our borders. These are three things that could be done fairly quickly.

Mental Health – The U.S. does not have the mental-health resources—the facilities, staff, and training programs—throughout our communities that can identify, assess, and address the mental-health issues that may contribute to the evolution of a disturbed individual into a mass killer. Mental health is health. Only by investing in mental-health infrastructure, as we do in our health services, can we offer support to individuals in need. And this would give us greater capability to intervene before people’s struggles and crises manifest in violent actions.

Military – I’ll put our American Security and prosperity first.

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