Ex-CIA undercover spy and GOP Rep. Will Hurd announces run for PRESIDENT

Former CIA clandestine officer and GOP Rep. Will Hurd has announced he is joining the Republican race to be president.

The Texan and Donald Trump critic announced he is jumping into the growing GOP field with 13 rivals during an interview with CBS on Thursday morning. 

‘This is a decision that my wife and I decided to do because we live in complicated times and we need common sense,’ he said.

Hurd, 45, was born in San Antonio, Texas, and just got married last year to Lynlie Wallace. He worked for the CIA for nine years between 2000 and 2009. 

His tours of duty included stints in India and Pakistan, where he worked undercover, at the height of the War on Terror.

One of his first assignments was the U.S. intelligence response to the Al Qaeda attack on the USS Cole in the Gulf of Aden in October 2000.

‘This is a decision that my wife and I decided to do because we live in complicated times and we need common sense,’ Hurd, who married Lynlie Wallace (left) just last year, told CBS in a Thursday interview

Primarily, Hurd was based in Washington, D.C., where he gave intelligence briefings to members of Congress. This duty is what Hurd credits for his desire to run for Congress. 

‘Our enemies plot, create chaos, and threaten the American Dream. At home, illegal immigration and fentanyl stream into our country. Inflation, still out of control. Crime and homelessness growing in our cities,’ Hurd says in his announcement video released Thursday. 

‘President Biden can’t solve these problems – or won’t. And if we nominate a lawless, selfish, failed politician like Donald Trump – who lost the House, the Senate, and the White House – we all know Joe Biden will win again.’

Democrats won control of the House in 2018 and the Senate in 2020 but saw the GOP retake the House majority during last year’s midterms.

He tweeted last summer that ‘the GOP can’t build sustainable majorities if our candidates are praising Hitler on the radio, getting arrested by the FBI for participating in the insurrection or being evaluated solely on their loyalty to the guy who lost the last election.’

Although Hurd is no fan of Trump, he also has been critical of Biden.

He told NBC’s Sunday program Meet the Press in May that the prospect of another election pitting the current president against the former one would be ‘the rematch from hell.’ 

Hurd joins a crowded primary field with frontrunners Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

In the middle of the field are former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. 

Longshot candidates, a group Hurd is likely joining, includes anti-woke activist and self-made biotech millionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, conservative radio host Larry Elder and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez.