![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AP25337564586145-e1765138954822.jpg?w=2048\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Trump blasted Cuellar for \u201cSuch a lack of LOYALTY,\u201d suggesting the Republican president might have expected the clemency to bolster the GOP\u2019s narrow House majority heading into the 2026 midterm elections.<\/p>\n
Cuellar, in a television interview Sunday after Trump\u2019s social media post, said he was a conservative Democrat willing to work with the administration \u201cto see where we can find common ground.\u201d The congressman said he had prayed for the president and the presidency at church that morning \u201cbecause if the president succeeds, the country succeeds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Citing a fellow Texas politician, the late President Lyndon Johnson, Cuellar said he was an American, Texan and Democrat, in that order. \u201cI think anybody that puts party before their country is doing a disservice to their country,\u201d he told Fox News Channel\u2019s \u201cSunday Morning Futures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump noted on his Truth Social platform that the Democratic President Joe Biden\u2019s administration had brought the charges against Cuellar and that the congressman, by running once more as a Democrat, was continuing to work with \u201cthe same RADICAL LEFT\u201d that wanted him and his wife in prison \u2014 \u201cAnd probably still do!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSuch a lack of LOYALTY, something that Texas Voters, and Henry\u2019s daughters, will not like. Oh\u2019 well, next time, no more Mr. Nice guy!\u201d Trump said. Cuellar\u2019s two daughters, Christina and Catherine, had sent Trump a letter in November asking that he pardon their parents.<\/p>\n
Trump explained his pardon he announced Wednesday as a matter of stopping a \u201cweaponized\u201d prosecution. Cuellar was an outspoken critic of Biden\u2019s immigration policy, a position that Trump saw as a key alignment with the lawmaker.<\/p>\n
Cuellar said he has good relationships within his party. \u201cI think the general Democrat Caucus and I, we get along. But they know that I\u2019m an independent voice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A party switch would have been an unexpected bonus for Republicans after the GOP-run Legislature redrew the state\u2019s congressional districts this year at Trump\u2019s behest. The Texas maneuver started a\u00a0mid-decade gerrymandering scramble\u00a0playing out across multiple states. Trump is trying to defend Republicans\u2019 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.<\/p>\n
Yet Cuellar\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Federal authorities had\u00a0charged Cuellar\u00a0and 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.<\/p>\n
Cuellar has said he his wife were innocent. The couple\u2019s trial had been set to begin in April.<\/p>\n
In the Fox interview, Cuellar insisted that federal authorities tried to entrap him with \u201ca sting operation to try to bribe me, and that failed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cuellar still faces\u00a0a House Ethics Committee investigation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#Trump #slams #Democratic #congressman #disloyal #switching #parties #pardon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Trump blasted Cuellar for \u201cSuc… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[1394,1397,1396,1398,486,1401,1400,1395,1399,599],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}