{"id":47404,"date":"2025-09-15T01:54:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T06:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=47404"},"modified":"2025-09-15T03:29:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T08:29:12","slug":"republican-rep-michael-mccaul-wont-seek-reelection-after-11-terms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=47404","title":{"rendered":"Republican Rep. Michael McCaul won\u2019t seek reelection after 11 terms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Texas Republican Congressman Michael McCaul announced Sunday that he will not seek re-election in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCaul, a former chairman of the Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs committees, joins two other House Republicans who announced their retirement from public office this year: McCaul’s fellow Texan Rep. Morgan Luttrell and Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCaul, who was first elected to Congress in 2004 and is serving his 11th term, told \u201cThis Week\u201d co-anchor Martha Raddatz that he was \u201clooking for a new challenge.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s been an honor to serve for over two decades in the Congress,\u201d McCaul said, adding that while he planned to serve the remainder of his term, he wanted to \u201ccontinue to serve the people in this country in national security and foreign policy and do what I’ve done the last two decades: make America stronger and the world safer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCaul\u2019s district, which represents parts of Austin and spans as far east as the Houston suburbs, leans heavily Republican. He handily won reelection in 2024, defeating his Democratic opponent by nearly 30 points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Texas Republicans redrew their congressional maps last month in an attempt to capture five new GOP-leaning House seats in next year\u2019s midterms, slightly weakening McCaul\u2019s district. Under the previous map, 61.6% of the district’s population voted for President Donald Trump, compared to 60.5% of the population under the newly drawn lines, according to data from the Texas Legislative Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCaul, who currently serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also reacted to the incursion of Russian drones into NATO ally Poland this week, dismissing Trump\u2019s assertion that the violation of Polish airspace may have been a mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith all deference to the president, I don’t think that was a mistake. I think Putin is testing the resolve of NATO,\u201d McCaul said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCaul also criticized Israel\u2019s attempted strikes on Hamas leadership in Qatar last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe asked them to negotiate these negotiations with Hamas,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then this shot across the bow, I don’t think, you know, as the president said, this does not serve the interests of the United States or Israel well, long term.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He wants to see how NATO reacts, how Poland reacts. The good news is Poland had a great response. They shot them down, but it shows you how aggressive Putin is getting in the region, not only the drones, but these war game exercises with Belarus right on the NATO border, the Baltic states, the nuclear bombers that flew to Poland around close to their airspace, and then these strikes up in the Arctic. He’s really putting the pressure on right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raddatz: <\/strong>Do you think President Trump was played, especially at that Alaska summit?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCaul: <\/strong>I never had any good faith anticipation of these negotiations. Putin is a KGB once and always. And I don’t think he’s playing fair. I think he’s manipulating the president, as a KGB officer would. I think the president, though the good news is, is waking up to the fact that Putin is not negotiating in good faith, not making concessions, and has to be dealt with. And I you know, the more Putin irritates the president, I think, the better we are in terms of defending NATO and Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

abcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas Republican Congressman Michael McCaul announced Sunday that he will not seek re-election in 2026. McCaul, a former chairman of the Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs committees, joins two other House Republicans who announced their retirement from public office this year: McCaul’s fellow Texan Rep. Morgan Luttrell and Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska. McCaul, who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":47405,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3564,1588,21064],"class_list":["post-47404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-mccaul","tag-rep","tag-republican"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47406,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47404\/revisions\/47406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}