Trump decries ex-congressman he pardoned as ‘disloyal’

Donald Trump is angry that indicted former 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.

- By BILL BARROW

EX-REP. Henry Cuellar of Texas plans to run as a Democrat, irking the president.

(CHIP SOMODEVILLA Getty Images)

Trump blasted Cuellar for “Such a lack of LOYALTY,” suggesting the president might have expected the clemency to persuade the lifelong Democrat to run as a Republican to potentially 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 B. 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.”