Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd (R) said on CNN’s “New Day” on Monday that the U.S. “can do better” than having two “octogenarians” face off in the next presidential election, referring to President Biden, 79, and former President Trump, 76.
“Well, the fact that we’re talking about potentially two octogenarians as our choice in 2024, we’re better than that, America! We can do better!” Hurd said, after being asked by “New Day” anchor John Berman how satisfied he was with the potential 2024 candidates.
“Candidates matter. Ideas matter,” said Hurd.
“And unfortunately right now, there’s this fight within the Republican Party between ideas and personalities. When we have a competition of ideas we can win, and we can have conservative government for more than just one election cycle.”
Hurd, a 45-year-old Black man who represented the heavily Latino 23rd District of Texas but did not seek reelection in 2020, has been outspoken about increasing diversity within the GOP.
“If the Republican Party doesn’t start looking like the rest of the country, there won’t be a Republican Party in this country,” he said upon retiring from Congress, where he represented cities close to the U.S.-Mexico border, including San Antonio, El Paso and Uvalde.
Hurd, a former CIA officer, criticized Trump on “New Day,” arguing that the former president’s possession of classified materials at his Mar-a-Lago residence was inexcusable and that the FBI search of his home earlier this month was warranted.
“Saying that DOJ [the Department of Justice] is being weaponized by going in and investigating a crime is like saying the fire department is being weaponized to stop a fire,” said Hurd.
However, Hurd added that the Department of Justice should be more transparent about its reasoning behind the Mar-a-Lago search due to the political sensitivity of searching a former president’s home.
“They had probable cause, they went through a judge, they went through the process, but because of the significance of this, because they are going into a former president’s residence, they should have a higher level of transparency,” he said.