Texas Republican Michael McCaul is warning that America is fast approaching a perilous turning point as he prepares to leave Congress after 11 terms.
The 63-year-old congressman announced his retirement in an appearance on ABC Sunday, during which he also condemned last week’s incursion of Russian drones into Poland and argued that Vladimir Putin is “manipulating” President Donald Trump.
After Russia sent at least 19 drones deep into the NATO country on Wednesday, Trump appeared to downplay the incident, saying, “It might have been a mistake.”
McCaul, a former anti-terrorism prosecutor, rejected the president’s assessment. “With all deference to the president, I don’t think that was a mistake. I think Putin is testing the resolve of NATO,” he told This Week’s Martha Raddatz.
Pointing to the Russian president’s increasingly audacious provocations, McCaul said, “We’ve never seen anything like this in recent times. And so, what I’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.”
Raddatz asked McCaul if he believed Trump had been “played” by Putin during failed talks aimed at resolving Russia’s war in Ukraine, including at last month’s Alaska summit.
“I never had any good faith anticipation of these negotiations. Putin is a KGB once and always,” McCaul replied, referencing Putin’s past service in the Soviet intelligence agency. “I think he’s manipulating the president, as a KGB officer would.”
Trump has threatened Russia with higher sanctions and “severe consequences” if he presses on with the war, but he has failed to follow through, repeatedly allowing deadlines slip by.
Still, McCaul, who joined the House in 2005 and previously served as chair of both the Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs committees, was optimistic that Trump is “waking up to the fact that Putin is not negotiating in good faith.”
Analyzing the president’s tendency to lash out against provocations, McCaul argued, “the more Putin irritates [Trump], I think, the better we are in terms of defending NATO and Ukraine.”
The U.S. needs to negotiate “out of strength,” he said.
Trump declared in a Truth Social post on Saturday that he was “ready to do major Sanctions on Russia,” but said it would depend on all NATO countries stopping the import of Russian oil.
McCaul, who represents a solidly Republican district stretching between Austin and Houston, said he planned to serve out the remainder of his term.
“It’s been an honor to serve for over two decades in the Congress,” McCaul said. “I’m looking for a new challenge in the same space that would be national security and foreign policy, but just in a different realm.”
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