Trump reups beef with ‘ungrateful’ Cuellar for staying Democrat after pardon

President Trump ripped into Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) Wednesday evening for not switching parties after receiving a presidential pardon in 2025, the latest development in a feud that has intensified since the Democrat announced his reelection bid.

In a Truth Social post ahead of a campaign rally in San Antonio, the president said he did not make a “deal” to gain Cuellar’s support in exchange for this pardon — ridding him of federal bribery and money laundering charges — like a “crooked politician would have.”

“But I thought there would be a good chance that Cuellar, who was persecuted by Democrats because they didn’t like him, would have routinely gone over to the Republican Party — The people that saved him from years in prison,” Trump wrote before echoing these points during the rally.

“Shockingly, Cuellar announced, only a few days later, that he is going to remain a Dumocrat,” he continued, using his derogatory nickname for Democrats. “Many considered this to be a tremendous act of disloyalty, and certainly, showed him to be an extremely ungrateful person.”

Cuellar and his wife faced a potential 20 – year prison sentence after they were accused of accepting almost $600,000 in bribes and laundering funds.

Trump pardoned the couple after reading a plea from their daughters. The president also accused the Biden administration of targeting the Democratic lawmaker because of disagreements on border policy.

The Democrat is running for reelection this November in Texas’s 28th Congressional District, which he has represented since 2005. The district, which includes a voting population that is 87 percent Hispanic, was redrawn to favor Republicans in the state legislature’s mid-decade redistricting effort.

The president expressed his support for Cuellar’s GOP opponent, Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina, calling him a “STAR” who he hoped would successfully oust the Democratic incumbent.

“We call that payback for a disloyal and ungrateful person, a person whose life has been saved only to go back into the clutches of the people that tried so hard to destroy him,” Trump wrote. “Henry Cuellar is a LOSER who, right now, should be serving a longterm jail sentence with his wife in a top level penitentiary.”