Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, one of the few remaining prominent senior House Republicans to represent the party’s traditional internationalist foreign policy wing, will not seek reelection next year. 

The longtime Republican congressman, currently serving his 11th term representing Texas’ 10th District, made the announcement on a Sept. 14 appearance on ABC News’ “This Week,” telling host Martha Raddatz that he was “looking for a new challenge.” 

For McCaul, who led both the Homeland Security and the Foreign Affairs committees and has long appeared focused on cultivating a reputation as a leading national security statesman, the retirement announcement is a significant pivot. Just one year ago, there were rumors he might be invited to take on a senior role in a second Trump administration.

But the invitation never came. The very skills that have made McCaul an effective legislative leader — including shepherding nearly 30 mostly bipartisan committee bills into law when he held the Foreign Affairs gavel — made him an odd fit for the incoming Trump administration and its disdain for working with Democrats.

McCaul has also been one of Ukraine’s most stalwart GOP defenders on the Hill, frequently pushing the Biden administration to equip the Ukrainian military with more capable weapons. That likely didn’t help his career prospects in Trump’s orbit or even on Capitol Hill, where the isolationist wing of the GOP appears ascendant.

McCaul tried to keep his options open by seeking a GOP leadership waiver to stay on as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the 117th Congress but he withdrew that request “out of respect” for House GOP conference rules after Trump won last year’s presidential election.

A gregarious backslapper considered a defender of traditional party values in the mold of the Reagan and Bush years of foreign policy, he was the top Republican on the Foreign Affairs panel for six years. McCaul served as ranking member from 2019 through 2022 and then as chairman during the 118th Congress. 

He held the Foreign Affairs gavel during the last two years of the Biden administration, where he played the role of both partner and antagonist. McCaul quickly became one of Capitol Hill’s biggest boosters for the Australia-United Kingdom-United States security partnership. He worked to enact provisions to smooth the regulatory runway to enable swift trilateral defense cooperation for AUKUS, one of President Joe Biden’s top Indo-Pacific priorities. 

But he also pursued an aggressive investigation into the administration’s bungled 2021 military withdrawal from Afghanistan. McCaul oversaw a party-line committee vote to hold Antony Blinken in contempt in September 2024 after the then-secretary of State failed to respond to a committee subpoena to testify about the Afghanistan withdrawal. At the time, Blinken was engaged in some high-stakes but ultimately unsuccessful shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East to try to wind down Israel’s war in Gaza.

McCaul held the gavel to the Homeland Security Committee from 2013 through 2019 and chaired the panel during some of the deadliest attacks on American soil, including the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. He also led the charge on the House side to overhaul cybersecurity efforts at the Homeland Security Department. 

He authored House-passed legislation authorizing the agency to create teams of cybersecurity response specialists to help restore services following a cyber attack, identify cybersecurity risks and develop prevention strategies to minimize the threats of such risks. It was signed by President Barack Obama in December 2015 after being attached to the fiscal 2016 omnibus.

In addition to his leadership positions on the Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs panels, McCaul for years had a seat on the Science, Space and Technology Committee, allowing him to round out his knowledge of emerging technology issues affecting U.S. national security. He also served as the chairman of the China Task Force, a predecessor to the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

From 2007 through 2012, he sat on the Ethics Committee. He was involved in investigations of Republican Rick Renzi of Arizona and California Democrat Maxine Waters. McCaul has also been on the whip team and was his freshman class’ liaison to GOP leaders.

Before his first election to Congress in 2004, McCaul served as chief of counterterrorism and national security in the U.S. attorney’s office in Austin, Texas. Earlier in his career, he was a prosecutor in the Justice Department’s public integrity section.

He leaves behind a safe Republican seat that stretches from North Austin to suburban Houston. Over his decadeslong career, his only competitive races came in 2018 and 2020 when Democrat Mike Siegel held him to single-digit wins. 

The district became more Republican after the lines were redrawn following the 2020 census — Trump carried the seat by 25 points last fall, according to calculations by The Downballot, as McCaul was winning an 11th term by 30 points. That partisanship did not change much after Texas Republicans approved a new congressional map last month; the redrawn 10th District would have backed Trump by 23 points, according to calculations by Inside Elections.

McCaul is the third Texas Republican to announce his upcoming departure from the House in recent weeks: Rep. Chip Roy is running for state attorney general, while Rep. Morgan Luttrell announced he had decided against a third term. 

Longtime Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, meanwhile, has said he won’t run for reelection if the courts do not overturn the new GOP-drawn congressional map. Under the new lines, Doggett was drawn into the same Austin-area seat as Democratic colleague Greg Casar.

McCaul has repeatedly ranked as one of the wealthiest members of Congress. His wealth is derived from his wife, Linda McCaul, who is the daughter of Clear Channel Communications founder Lowry Mays.

Andrew Menezes and Noella Kertes contributed to this report.