Matthew McConaughey might still be thinking about running for office.
The Texas-born movie star said he’s carefully considering going into politics while discussing new policies deal with school safety during an appearance on ABC’s This Week on Sunday.
When asked if he could see himself running for elected office, he told host Jonathan Karl, “There’s one great question that I’m still answering.”
McConaughey explained why he felt more comfortable working outside of the system and offered Karl more details about his own system Greenlight’s grant initiative.
The program, which he and his wife Camila Alves launched earlier this month, aims to connect communities with government grants to prevent school violence and support student mental health.
“As of now, I’m a private citizen with my wife and I have an idea like the Greenlights Grant Initiative,” he said.
“To work publicly with the government to help them not do the work for them but to help them deliver on what they set out to do in the first place,” the conservative-leaning star continued. “There’s an argument that what I’m doing right now is in some ways more useful.”
A native of Uvalde, Texas, McConaughey was forced to take action against gun violence after the community was devastated by a school shooting in May 2022. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed in the Robb Elementary School shooting.
In June 2022, the actor visited the White House to speak with President Joe Biden on gun violence prevention.
Not long after, Congress passed the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which authorized school funding for mental health support, improved background checks, and stricter enforcement of “red flag” laws.
In his interview with ABC, McConaughey addressed people who fear gun control would violate their Second Amendment rights, telling Karl, “I would change the word ‘control’ to ‘responsibility.'”
“No one wants to be controlled,” he continued. “But accountability is still something we can all say, ‘Yes, I’ll take responsibility…’. Second Amendment advocates could talk about accountability. They could look you in the eye and talk responsibility to someone across the aisle.”
McConaughey first flirted with the idea of running again in 2021 after polls showed he was leading a hypothetical race for governor against Republican incumbent Greg Abbott.
“It’s a humbling and inspiring way to think,” McConaughey said in a November 2021 Twitter video. “It’s also a path I don’t want to take at this moment.”
Abbott would defeat his Democratic opponent Beto O’Rourke by double digits in November 2022.
Watch McConaughey’s full ABC interview here:
