President Donald Trump is lashing out at an “ungrateful” Democrat he pardoned after the lawmaker failed to meet his expectations.
Trump bashed Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar Wednesday in a searing Truth Social post and later at a San Antonio rally.
He claimed he did not pardon Cuellar and his wife on federal bribery and money laundering charges to “make a deal.” He insisted he did not grant the 2025 presidential pardon in exchange for Cuellar’s support.
“I did the pardons, and made no deal, where a crooked politician would have,” Trump contended.
But the Bulwark’s White House correspondent Andrew Egger wrote on X, “It’s genuinely amazing how little he tries to hide his mob-boss leadership style. ‘I pardoned Democrat Henry Cuellar, but he refused to become a Republican to pay his debt to me. Very disloyal, vote him out!’”
Later in his speech before the MAGA faithful in Texas, Trump continued to deny that he granted the pardons with any expectations of Cuellar.
“I made no deal. I didn’t say,’ Oh, I’ll give you the pardons if you turn Republican.’ I didn’t say that,” Trump insisted.
Trump repeated, “A crooked politician would have done that, but I thought there would be a good chance that Cuellar might say, ‘Wow, he did something really wonderful for me,’ you know, somebody has a heart, and he was persecuted by Democrats,” Trump told the crowd.
But then Trump let the truth slip out.
“They went after him like he was the enemy. They didn’t like him. Nobody likes him, but they didn’t like him at all and he would have routinely gone over to the Republican Party,” the president asserted.
Trump seemed to expect Cuellar to switch parties in exchange for the pardon. “But shockingly, after the pardon was given, and he and the wife were freed up, no more court cases,” an exasperated Trump continued.
Days later, Trump claimed Cuellar had announced he would remain a Democrat, prompting an angry response from the president.
Trump called the decision “a tremendous act of disloyalty” and labeled the congressman “an extremely ungrateful kind of a person.”
Then Trump made an even more revealing remark.
“You know I saved him from going to jail for like 15 or 20 years. They were talking about 20 years in jail. His wife was going with him, as I heard, wanted him to turn to the man and the party that helped him, but he wouldn’t do it,” Trump claimed, talking about himself and Republicans.
Trump basically acknowledging that he expected Cuellar to join the Republican Party in exchange for the pardon or, at the very least, not run again as a Democrat.
The backlash on social media was instant.
“I can’t wait to see how historians tell this part of history. Just wild stuff from a lunatic president that the free people of the US elected. Twice,” an X user incredulously stated.
Others agreed.
“I know brazen and dumb can essentially be interchangeable here but the latter is just soooo much stronger with this stuff and soooo much less ‘alpha’. He appears as basically a simple-minded knuckledragging senile moron who thinks on a 4th grade transactional level at all times,” this X user angrily proclaimed.
This commenter noted, “He hides nothing. He cares about no one.”
Trump says he pardoned Cuellar and his wife after their daughters wrote the president a touching letter.
Now Trump is endorsing Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina, whom he calls a “STAR” in the upcoming election.
