U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he attends a roundtable discussion on the day he announced an aid package for farmers, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., December 8, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform on Tuesday to rage that Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), a conservative Democrat he gave a pardon to in a federal bribery case, is still running for office as a Democrat despite the massive "favor" he gave him.
Trump had apparently expected Cuellar would either bow out of the way or switch parties for him after the pardon, which was met with shock and anger by South Texas Republicans who had been hoping to unseat him. He has been fuming ever since realizing that Cuellar didn't plan to do either of those things.
"Nobody knows Henry Cuellar better than Donald J. Trump," wrote the president. "I studied his records, learned about his financing, and listened to his two wonderful daughters beg me to help the mother and father that they love. Their letters were heart wrenching and beautiful, but their father had problems that nobody could solve but me, and the daughters very correctly and respectfully knew that. He and his wife were headed to jail for up to 20 years because he was 'stupid' in what he did but, above all, because the Biden Administration practiced Political Weaponization on Cuellar and his wife because they didn’t agree with his policies on the Southern Border."
"He was a weak and incompetent version of me, who wanted the Border closed to criminals, drug dealers, people from mental institutions and, above all, murderers and heavy handed criminals that were sitting in jails and mental institutions, and should never have been given the right to be released into our Country," Trump continued. "Henry’s views on these subjects were not strong, but they were better than other Democrats. Biden and his crew of Radical Left Thugs did not like those things about Cuellar, and they worked hard, and expected to put him in jail for the rest of his life."
"Being an expert on Political Weaponization, based on what the Biden Losers had done to me, and without having ever met Henry Cuellar, and in particular because of the magnificence of the letter drawn by his daughters asking me to help 'Mom and Dad,' I gave him and Mrs. Cuellar a full and unconditional Pardon," Trump continued. "In doing so, I never assumed he would be running for Office again, and certainly not as a Democrat, who essentially destroyed his life even with the Pardon given, but he did, and now, despite doing him by far the greatest favor of his life, 20 years of FREEDOM, I am fighting him for his seat in Congress."
Trump ended the rant by endorsing Cuellar's Republican opponent. "His views are not nearly as good or strong as Judge Tano Tijerina, who is much more powerful on the Border issue, cutting Taxes, our Military, and just about everything else than is Henry Cuellar."