In one of his latest displays of political score-settling, President Donald Trump endorsed a Republican challenger running against Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, whom Trump pardoned just last month.
The endorsement, which Trump announced in a Truth Social post Tuesday, went to Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina. Trump also used the post to lash out at Cuellar for what he described as “disloyalty” for seeking reelection as a Democrat.
“I don’t know why, but the fact that Henry Cuellar would be running against Donald J. Trump, and the Republican Party, seems to be a great act of disloyalty and, perhaps more importantly, the act of a fool who would immediately go back to a Political Party, the Radical Left Democrats, whose views are different from his, but not nearly good or strong enough to be a true Republican,” Trump wrote in one of two lengthy posts.
Trump appeared most irate at Cuellar’s decision to return immediately to electoral politics, suggesting that he never expected Cuellar to run for office again.
Cuellar was indicted in 2024 and charged with bribery, unlawful foreign influence, and money laundering, but he has denied making any deal with Trump in exchange for the pardon. He filed to run for reelection the week after Trump issued it, a move that reportedly angered the president at the time.
Trump’s endorsement of Tijerina notably came hours after he publicly predicted that he would face impeachment if Republicans lose their House majority in November. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report currently rates Cuellar’s district as “lean Democratic.”
On Tuesday, Cuellar again thanked Trump for the pardon but declined to engage with his accusations of disloyalty.
“As mentioned previously, my family and I thank President Trump for his pardon,” Cuellar said in a statement to NBC News. “I look forward to a resounding victory in November.”
Cuellar, who was first elected to Congress in 2004, has long proven difficult to unseat. Even as Republicans gained ground in the region in 2024, his district was one of just 13 House seats nationwide that elected a Democrat while also backing Trump for president. Cuellar won his race with 53% of the vote, outperforming Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
But within his own party, Cuellar remains an ideological outlier. He is the only anti-abortion Democrat in Congress and frequently sides with Republicans on issues ranging from reproductive rights to border security.
Still, Republicans see an opening. The National Republican Congressional Committee has targeted Cuellar’s seat as a top pickup opportunity following a redistricting overhaul approved last summer.
According to The Texas Tribune, the new map removes roughly half of Cuellar’s current constituents and gives Trump a 10-point advantage—significantly complicating Cuellar’s path to reelection.
Related | What Trump’s pardons expose about his politics
Tijerina welcomed Trump’s backing on X, calling it an honor.
“Together, we are going to take South Texas back and put America First,” he wrote.
A former minor league baseball player, Tijerina was once a Democrat who switched parties on Fox News in 2024.
Trump, meanwhile, made clear that his support for Tijerina is as much about retribution as ideology. While reiterating that he would still pardon Cuellar if given the chance, Trump said the congressman “deserves to be beaten badly in the upcoming election.”
“Henry should not be allowed to serve in Congress again,” Trump wrote. “Tano’s views are stronger, better, and far less tainted than Henry’s, and he has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next Representative from Texas’ 28th Congressional District.”
In a follow-up post, Trump shared photos of letters from Cuellar’s daughters, urging him to pardon their parents. Trump also pardoned Cuellar’s wife, Imelda, who had faced related charges.
“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,” Trump wrote, adding that, “despite doing him by far the greatest favor of his life,” he now felt compelled to back a challenger.
“Nobody knows Henry Cuellar better than Donald J. Trump,” he said, calling Cuellar “a weak and incompetent version of me.”
Cuellar, for his part, argued last month that the case against him was “absolutely” tied to his criticism of the Biden administration’s border policies. Prosecutors alleged in 2024 that Cuellar and his wife accepted nearly $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijani oil and gas company and a Mexican bank. Both pleaded not guilty.
Texas’ primaries are scheduled for early March, but several other candidates are running in Cuellar’s 28th Congressional District, including Republican Eileen Day and Democrats Andrew Vantine and Ricardo Villarreal.
Trump also issued several other House endorsements on Tuesday, backing Amanda McKinney in Washington’s 4th District and issuing a rare dual endorsement for Gina Swoboda and Jay Feely in Arizona’s 1st District.
Taken together, the episode underscores a familiar Trump pattern: loyalty demanded, favors weaponized, and punishment reserved for those who fail to show sufficient deference.