Trump explodes against the Democratic congressman
Donald Trump is angry that Rep. Henry Cuellar is running again as a Democrat instead of switching parties after the president pardoned the Texas congressman and his wife in a federal bribery and conspiracy case.
Trump criticized Cuellar for “such a lack of LOYALTY,” suggesting the Republican president might have hoped the pardon would bolster the GOP’s slim House majority heading into the 2026 midterm elections.
Cuellar, in a television interview Sunday after Trump’s social media post, said he was a conservative Democrat willing to work with the administration “to see where we can find common ground.”
The congressman said he had prayed for the president and the presidency in church that morning “because if the president succeeds, the country succeeds.”
via News
Citing a fellow Texas politician, the late President Lyndon Johnson, Cuellar said he was an American, a Texan and a Democrat, in that order.
“I think anyone who puts party before country is doing them a disservice,” he told News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Trump noted on his Truth Social platform that Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration had filed charges against Cuellar and that the congressman, by running once again as a Democrat, was continuing to work with “the same RADICAL LEFT” that wanted him and his wife in prison: “And probably still wants them!”
“Such lack of LOYALTY, something Texas voters and Henry’s daughters won’t like. Oh well, next time, no more Mr. Nice Guy!” Trump said. Cuellar’s two daughters, Christina and Catherine, sent Trump a letter in November asking him to forgive their parents.
Trump explained the pardon he announced Wednesday as a matter of stopping a “weaponized” prosecution. Cuellar was an outspoken critic of Biden’s immigration policy, a position Trump saw as a key alignment with the lawmaker.
Cuellar said he has good relations within his party. “I think the general Democratic group and I get along well. But they know I’m an independent voice,” he said.
A party switch would have been an unexpected plus for Republicans after the GOP-led Legislature redistricted the state’s congressional districts this year at Trump’s behest. The Texas maneuver started a gerrymandering fight in the middle of the decade that played out in several states. Trump is trying to defend the Republican majority in the House and avoid a repeat of his first term, when Democrats dominated the House midterm elections and used a new majority to impede the administration, launch investigations and twice impeach Trump.
However, Cuellar’s district in South Texas, which includes parts of the San Antonio metropolitan area, was not one of the Democratic districts that Republicans flipped substantially, and Cuellar believes he remains well positioned to win re-election.
Federal authorities had accused Cuellar and his wife of accepting thousands of dollars in exchange for the congressman promoting the interests of an Azerbaijani-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico. Cuellar was accused of agreeing to influence pro-Azerbaijan legislation and delivering a pro-Azerbaijan speech in the US House of Representatives.
Cuellar has said his wife was innocent. The couple’s trial was scheduled to begin in April.
In the interview with News, Cuellar insisted that federal authorities tried to set him up with “an undercover operation to try to bribe me, and it failed.”