Ben Shapiro says Trump's pardon of Henry Cuellar is “a giant fail”
Shapiro: “The Trump administration's use of the pardon power has been exorbitant”
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From the December 8, 2025, edition of The Daily Wire's The Ben Shapiro Show
BEN SHAPIRO (HOST): OK. So, again, that is on the good side of the Trump administration PR ledger. On the bad side, the Trump administration's use of the pardon power has been exorbitant. The Trump administration, of course, has now pardoned an ex-Honduran president who was charged with major narco trafficking. And this, again, is going be an awkward situation for Republicans trying to defend.
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SHAPIRO: So, again, it's going to be hard for Republicans to defend that. I mean, if the best that we can do is just slapping George Stephanopoulos, I mean, it's fun, but I'm not sure that it's gonna do the work. Meanwhile, another pardon of Trump's has now gone awry according to Mediaite. In a blistering post to Truth Social early on Sunday, the president has now bashed Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas, pronouncing his intent to run for reelection as a Democrat after receiving a pardon from the president. He was facing charges for allegedly taking over $600,000 in foreign bribes. His wife was also charged.
So Trump wrote, can you imagine? The Democrats under the crooked Joe Biden administration, who always use extreme force and jail time to destroy their political opponent, wanted to put Congressman Henry Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, in prison for 15 years, which I predicted these radical left lunatics would do. And they never stopped wanting to fulfill this evil quest. The Dems mercilessly went after Henry with everything they had. They were looking to destroy him, his lovely wife, his two young daughters, and anyone close to them. When the Democrats overwhelmingly lost the 2024 presidential election and power with it, they regardless did everything they could to keep going after the Cuellar family. The Dems were vicious and all because Henry strongly wanted, correctly, border security. But Trump has now changed his tune, quote, only a short time after signing the pardon, Congressman Henry Cuellar announced that he will be running for Congress again in the great state of Texas — a state where I received the highest number of votes ever recorded — as a Democrat, continuing to work with the same radical left scum that just weeks before wanted him and his wife to spend the rest of their lives in prison and probably still do. Such a lack of loyalty, something that Texas voters and Henry's daughters will not like. Oh, well. Next time, no more mister nice guy. So I do not love the pardon power. It is not my favorite part of the Constitution. It is typically misused by members of both parties, and, this one seems like a giant fail.