After serving six terms in Congress, Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN), a veteran and a medical doctor, will retire at the end of this term, Roe’s office confirmed to TPM Friday.
“As someone who practiced medicine for over 30 years, I said I would serve five or six terms because I never intended this job to be a second career. After prayerful consideration, I have decided to retire at the end of the 116th Congress,” Roe said in a press release Friday. “The challenges we are facing now as complex as ever, and I still have a lot of fire in my belly. I look forward to finishing my term strongly for the East Tennesseans that I love representing and working with President Trump in favor of the free-market, conservative policies so many of us hold dear.”
Roe has served as the chair of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee and is the co-chair of the House GOP Doctors Caucus and a co-chair of the Congressional Academic Medicine Caucus. The six-term congressman will join the swelling ranks of House Republicans who won’t seek reelection after spending a year in the minority.
Roe’s retirement makes him the 22nd House Republican to throw in the towel in recent months and the first to call it quits since President Trump was impeached last month.
