{"id":13258,"date":"2025-09-14T14:32:50","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T14:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/texas-rep-mccaul-says-he-wont-seek-reelection\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T14:32:50","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T14:32:50","slug":"texas-rep-mccaul-says-he-wont-seek-reelection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/texas-rep-mccaul-says-he-wont-seek-reelection\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Rep. McCaul says he won&#8217;t seek reelection"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Saying he was seeking &#8220;a new challenge,&#8221; Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said Sunday he won&#8217;t run for reelection in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on ABC&#8217;s &#8220;This Week,&#8221; McCaul told host Martha Raddatz: &#8220;I&#8217;m going to serve the remainder of my term. But I&#8217;m looking for a new challenge in the same space that would be national security, foreign policy, but just in a different realm. &#8220;<\/p>\n<p>McCaul, the former chair of the Homeland Security and Foreign Relations Committee, added: &#8220;I want to continue to serve the people of this country in national security and foreign policy and do what I&#8217;ve done the last two decades \u2014 make America stronger and the world safer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Raddatz responded: &#8220;Well, that&#8217;s a good plan. They&#8217;ll miss you on Blue Light News. You got a ways to go. Thanks for joining us this morning.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>McCaul subsequently <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RepMcCaul\/status\/1967214481198457182?t=-d1qu6sWphzj94hjXe6xvg&amp;s=19\" target=\"_blank\">posted the clip on X and added<\/a>: &#8220;It has been the honor of a lifetime to represent the people of central Texas and to chair the prestigious Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs Committees. My father\u2019s service in World War II inspired me to pursue a life of public service, with a focus on defending our great nation against global threats, and I have been proud to carry out that mission in Congress for more than two decades. I am ready for a new challenge in 2027 and look forward to continuing to serve my country in the national security and foreign policy realm.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>McCaul, age 63, was first elected in 2004. He drew 63.6 percent of the vote in his last reelection race in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Most of McCaul&#8217;s ABC appearance was spent discussing foreign policy and current international crises. He said, for instance, that he was worried that the deployment of Russian drones over Poland&#8217;s airspace last week represented an &#8220;escalation&#8221; of tensions in Europe.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve never seen anything like this in recent times,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And so, what I&#8217;m concerned about is that the escalation here and the temperature rising, we got to be very careful not to be on the precipice of a World War III.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>McCaul also said he expects Russian President Vladimir Putin to continue to cause trouble, at least to a point.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think he&#8217;ll continue to be provocative and saber-rattle. I don&#8217;t think he would use nuclear weapons. I think China put a red line,&#8221; McCaul told Raddatz.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saying he was seeking &#8220;a new challenge,&#8221; Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said Sunday he won&#8217;t run for reelection in 2026. Speaking on ABC&#8217;s &#8220;This Week,&#8221; McCaul told host Martha Raddatz: &#8220;I&#8217;m going to serve the remainder of my term. But I&#8217;m looking for a new challenge in the same space that would be national security, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}