SiriusXM host Stephen A. Smith said on “Straight Shooter with Stephen A.” on Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s pardon of Democratic Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar was an ingenious political move.
Trump announced the pardon in a Wednesday Truth Social post, which granted clemency to Cuellar and his wife, who were indicted by former President Joe Biden’s administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) in May 2024 on charges pertaining to allegedly accepting more than half a million dollars in bribes. Smith said on his show that the pardon made it so Democrats could no longer accuse Trump of being partisan.
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“[H]ow do the Democrats look when they now try to attack Trump because they say he pays no attention to the facts? How do they look now when they say he doesn’t provide leadership? How do they sound now when they accuse him of lawlessness? I mean, at some point in time, we just have to give the man credit,” Smith said. “He’s shrewd as hell. He really is. I mean, he is giving the Democratic Party lessons! Lessons! I mean, school is in session on how to manipulate minds and coax folks into thinking along the lines of his way of thinking.”
“You can’t sit up there and talk about how everything is partisan when the man sits up there and lets you off the hook and you on the opposite party,” he continued. “Now granted, that same Representative Cuellar was the same guy that spoke out against the Biden administration when it came to immigration issues and our borders. So again, that falls in line with Trump and we get that part. But he’s still a Democrat.”
Smith argued that Cuellar may now be more likely to vote with Trump and Republicans and that the pardon showed the president moderating.
“What have I been saying about the Democrats? Get away from the far left. Move towards the center,” he said. “And Trump beat them to it. He beat them to it. That’s what he’s doing! That’s what he’s doing! It’s brilliant! Absolutely positively brilliant politics! Nothing compares!”
Trump asserted in his Truth Social post that Cuellar and his wife were victims of weaponization by the Biden administration. They were slated to face trial in April 2026.
“For years, the Biden Administration weaponized the Justice System against their Political Opponents, and anyone who disagreed with them,” Trump wrote. “One of the clearest examples of this was when Crooked Joe used the FBI and DOJ to ‘take out’ a member of his own Party after Highly Respected Congressman Henry Cuellar bravely spoke out against Open Borders, and the Biden Border ‘Catastrophe.’”
“Sleepy Joe went after the Congressman, and even the Congressman’s wonderful wife, Imelda, simply for speaking the TRUTH,” he continued.
Federal prosecutors alleged Cuellar and his wife obtained $600,000 in a bribery scheme between 2014 and 2021 involving the government of Azerbaijan and a Mexican bank in exchange for promoting Azerbaijani interests in the House of Representatives. The couple have denied any wrongdoing and Cuellar refused to resign from his position, which he has maintained since 2005.
The congressman thanked Trump on X on Wednesday for his “tremendous leadership and for taking the time to look at the facts” after the president’s pardon announcement.
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