Trump slams pardoned Democratic congressman as 'disloyal' for not
switching parties
[December 08, 2025]
By BILL BARROW
Donald Trump is angry that Rep. Henry Cuellar is running again as a
Democrat rather than switch parties after the president pardoned the
Texas congressman and his wife in a federal bribery and conspiracy case.
Trump blasted Cuellar for “Such a lack of LOYALTY,” suggesting the
Republican president might have expected the clemency to bolster the
GOP's narrow 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 at church that
morning “because if the president succeeds, the country succeeds.”
Citing a fellow Texas politician, the late President Lyndon Johnson,
Cuellar said he was an American, Texan and Democrat, in that order. "I
think anybody that puts party before their country is doing a disservice
to their country,” he told Fox News Channel's “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Trump noted on his Truth Social platform that the Democratic President
Joe Biden's administration had brought the charges against Cuellar and
that the congressman, by running once more as a Democrat, was continuing
to work with “the same RADICAL LEFT” that wanted him and his wife in
prison — “And probably still do!”
“Such a lack of LOYALTY, something that Texas Voters, and Henry’s
daughters, will not like. Oh’ well, next time, no more Mr. Nice guy!”
Trump said. Cuellar’s two daughters, Christina and Catherine, had sent
Trump a letter in November asking that he pardon their parents.
Trump explained his pardon he announced Wednesday as a matter of
stopping a “weaponized” prosecution. Cuellar was an outspoken critic of
Biden's immigration policy, a position that Trump saw as a key alignment
with the lawmaker.
Cuellar said he has good relationships within his party. “I think the
general Democrat Caucus and I, we get along. But they know that I’m an
independent voice,” he said.
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Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, speaks during a hearing of the Homeland
Security Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations on
Capitol Hill, April 10, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark
Schiefelbein, File)
A party switch would have been an unexpected bonus for Republicans after
the GOP-run Legislature redrew the state's congressional districts this
year at Trump's behest. The Texas maneuver started a mid-decade
gerrymandering scramble playing out across multiple states. Trump is
trying to defend Republicans’ House majority and avoid a repeat of his
first term, when Democrats dominated the House midterms and used a new
majority to stymie the administration, launch investigations and twice
impeach Trump.
Yet Cuellar's South Texas district, which includes parts of metro San
Antonio, was not one of the Democratic districts that Republicans
changed substantially, and Cuellar believes he remains well-positioned
to win reelection.
Federal authorities had charged Cuellar and his wife with accepting
thousands of dollars in exchange for the congressman advancing the
interests of an Azerbaijan-controlled energy company and a bank in
Mexico. Cuellar was accused of agreeing to influence legislation
favorable to Azerbaijan and deliver a pro-Azerbaijan speech on the floor
of the U.S. House.
Cuellar has said he his wife were innocent. The couple’s trial had been
set to begin in April.
In the Fox interview,, Cuellar insisted that federal authorities tried
to entrap him with “a sting operation to try to bribe me, and that
failed.”
Cuellar still faces a House Ethics Committee investigation.
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