Trump vows to challenge Henry Cuellar for Texas House seat he pardoned

Trump president says he will back Judge Tano Tijerina against the Laredo Democrat, months after granting Cuellar and his wife a full and unconditional pardon on federal corruption charges.

First Published: July 13, 2026, 12:02 PM ET

WASHINGTON D.C. — Donald Trump said he will campaign against the Texas Democrat he pardoned, U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar of Laredo.

Cuellar, the eight-term congressman for South Texas’ 28th District, and his wife Imelda faced up to 20 years in prison before Trump granted them a full and unconditional pardon. Trump said in a post on Truth Social on July 13, 2026 at 3:45 PM ET that he acted after reading a clemency letter from Cuellar’s daughters. He then declared he now backs a rival for the seat.

Here is the full post on truthsocial: “Nobody knows Henry Cuellar better than Trump. I studied his records, learned about his financing, and listened to his two wonderful daughters beg me to help the mother and father that they love. Their letters were heart wrenching and beautiful, but their father had problems that nobody could solve but me, and the daughters very correctly and respectfully knew that. He and his wife were headed to jail for up to 20 years because he was “stupid” in what he did but, above all, because the Biden Administration practiced Political Weaponization on Cuellar and his wife because they didn’t agree with his policies on the Southern Border. He was a weak and incompetent version of me, who wanted the Border closed to criminals, drug dealers, people from mental institutions and, above all, murderers and heavy handed criminals that were sitting in jails and mental institutions, and should never have been given the right to be released into our Country. Henry’s views on these subjects were not strong, but they were better than other Democrats. Biden and his crew of Radical Left Thugs did not like those things about Cuellar, and they worked hard, and expected to put him in jail for the rest of his life. Being an expert on Political Weaponization, based on what the Biden Losers had done to me, and without having ever met Henry Cuellar, and in particular because of the magnificence of the letter drawn by his daughters asking me to help “Mom and Dad,” I gave him and Mrs. Cuellar a full and unconditional Pardon. In doing so, 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, but he did, and now, despite doing him by far the greatest favor of his life, 20 years of FREEDOM, I am fighting him for his seat in Congress because his views are not nearly as good or strong as Judge Tano Tijerina, who is much more powerful on the Border issue, cutting Taxes, our Military, and just about everything else than is Henry Cuellar.”

The daughters, Christina Cuellar and Catherine Cuellar, urged Trump to show “mercy and compassion” and to grant “a full and unconditional pardon,” they wrote in the letter shared with the post. The letter recalled that Trump once told one daughter at a White House picnic that her father was “a good man.” It described “a deep emotional and financial toll” on the family and tied the case to Cuellar’s record on protecting South Texas and the border.

The stakes now run in two directions for Cuellar. He gains freedom from a prison term but loses the president’s political backing in a battleground district. Trump named Tano Tijerina, the Webb County judge, as his preferred candidate. That choice would set up a Republican challenge in a seat Democrats have held for two decades.

Federal prosecutors indicted Cuellar last year on corruption charges, and he forfeited his role as the top Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees more than $65 billion in annual spending, according to tpr.org. He returned to that homeland security funding post after the pardon, according to tpr.org. The pardon surprised local Republicans who had planned to unseat the Laredo Democrat in the 28th Congressional District, according to tpr.org.

A letter from Christina Cuellar and Catherine Cuellar is displayed on Truth Social on 07/13/2026. The letter was cited by former President Donald J.

For voters in South Texas, the dispute shapes who represents a district that stretches from Laredo toward San Antonio and sits at the center of immigration enforcement fights. Cuellar has pressed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for answers on a San Antonio warehouse set to become a major Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding site, and he still supports ICE funding, according to tpr.org.

Has this happened before? A sitting president openly campaigning against a lawmaker he had just pardoned is rare in modern American politics. Trump himself faulted Cuellar days after the December pardon for filing to run again as a Democrat, calling it a “lack of loyalty,” according to tpr.org.

The next decision rests with primary and general election voters in Texas’ 28th District. Trump did not announce a date for any endorsement event or campaign appearance for Tijerina.

Presidential pardons have carried political weight before. Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon on September 8, 1974, weeks after Nixon resigned the presidency, and critics blamed the decision for helping Ford lose the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter. Ford spent years defending the act as necessary to move the nation past Watergate, and the pardon shadowed his public standing until his death.