Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, is seen aft a gathering of the House Democratic Caucus successful the U.S. Capitol connected Wednesday, June 8, 2022.
Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
Donald Trump is aggravated that Rep. Henry Cuellar is moving again arsenic a Democrat alternatively than power parties aft the president pardoned the Texas congressman and his woman successful a national bribery and conspiracy case.
Trump blasted Cuellar for "Such a deficiency of LOYALTY," suggesting the Republican president mightiness person expected the clemency to bolster the GOP's constrictive House bulk heading into the 2026 midterm elections.
Cuellar, successful a tv interrogation Sunday aft Trump's societal media post, said helium was a blimpish Democrat consenting to enactment with the medication "to spot wherever we tin find communal ground." The congressman said helium had prayed for the president and the presidency astatine religion that greeting "because if the president succeeds, the state succeeds."
Citing a chap Texas politician, the precocious President Lyndon Johnson, Cuellar said helium was an American, Texan and Democrat, successful that order. "I deliberation anybody that puts enactment earlier their state is doing a disservice to their country," he told Fox News Channel's "Sunday Morning Futures."
Trump noted connected his Truth Social level that the Democratic President Joe Biden's medication had brought the charges against Cuellar and that the congressman, by moving erstwhile much arsenic a Democrat, was continuing to enactment with "the aforesaid RADICAL LEFT" that wanted him and his woman successful situation — "And astir apt inactive do!"
"Such a deficiency of LOYALTY, thing that Texas Voters, and Henry's daughters, volition not like. Oh' well, adjacent time, nary much Mr. Nice guy!" Trump said. Cuellar's 2 daughters, Christina and Catherine, had sent Trump a missive successful November asking that helium pardon their parents.
Trump explained his pardon helium announced Wednesday arsenic a substance of stopping a "weaponized" prosecution. Cuellar was an outspoken professional of Biden's migration policy, a presumption that Trump saw arsenic a cardinal alignment with the lawmaker.
Cuellar said helium has bully relationships wrong his party. "I deliberation the wide Democrat Caucus and I, we get along. But they cognize that I'm an autarkic voice," helium said.
A enactment power would person been an unexpected bonus for Republicans aft the GOP-run Legislature redrew the state's legislature districts this twelvemonth astatine Trump's behest. The Texas maneuver started a mid-decade gerrymandering scramble playing retired crossed aggregate states. Trump is trying to support Republicans' House bulk and debar a repetition of his archetypal term, erstwhile Democrats dominated the House midterms and utilized a caller bulk to stymie the administration, motorboat investigations and doubly impeach Trump.
Yet Cuellar's South Texas district, which includes parts of metro San Antonio, was not 1 of the Democratic districts that Republicans changed substantially, and Cuellar believes helium remains well-positioned to triumph reelection.
Federal authorities had charged Cuellar and his woman with accepting thousands of dollars successful speech for the congressman advancing the interests of an Azerbaijan-controlled vigor institution and a slope successful Mexico. Cuellar was accused of agreeing to power authorities favorable to Azerbaijan and present a pro-Azerbaijan code connected the level of the U.S. House.
Cuellar has said helium his woman were innocent. The couple's proceedings had been acceptable to statesman successful April.
In the Fox interview, Cuellar insisted that national authorities tried to entrap him with "a sting cognition to effort to bribe me, and that failed."
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