Republican presidential candidate Will Hurd, who is positioning himself as the anti-Donald Trump contender in the 2024 primary race, went after the former president again after CNN reported that new evidence has surfaced connecting Trump’s team to a breach in Georgia’s election system.
According to CNN, prosecutors in Atlanta have found text messages that show that members of Trump’s team were invited to access confidential election office data in Georgia’s heavily GOP-leaning Coffee County.
Though that county easily went to Trump in the 2020 election, the texts show that his team were seeking access to the data to find proof for Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that Joe Biden’s victory was fraudulent. At the same time, Atlanta prosecutors are preparing what would be a fourth indictment against the former president.
“This is about a president trying to overturn an election and creating a conspiracy. This kind of infrastructure is considered critical infrastructure, and it’s supposed to be defended,” Hurd, a former Texas congressman, told Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“To me, it’s an indication of how fragile our election system is and how Donald Trump’s efforts were making us increase our lack of trust in our systems,” he said. “Donald Trump is running for president…because he’s trying to stay out of jail — because, as more of this information comes out and as the American people recognize the extent of his baggage, they’re getting sick and tired of it.”
Tapper questioned Hurd’s claim that the growing indictments against Trump are turning Republican voters against the former president, pointing to poll numbers showing Trump in the lead in the 2024 GOP primary. Hurd dismissed those polls, pointing to the 2022 midterm results that ended up being much closer than polls predicted.
“When I crisscross the state, whether I’m in New Hampshire, Iowa, Texas, California, Alabama, people come up to me and they say, ‘Hey, you’re right. He is running to stay out of prison,’” Hurd said. “So, I’m not questioning his front-runner status, but what I am saying is that many people don’t want to see Donald Trump or Joe Biden be the nominees. And people are looking for something different.”
Watch Hurd’s interview on “State of the Union” in the video above.
